Towards a political risk assessment.
The student movement cut from the shards of Millbank has departed to a world of unaffordable debt and unattainable jobs - but has the dream departed with it? We think not, but we must be pragmatic about where we stand: chancellors are lobbying for even higher fees; the government is privatising student loans, ensuring rising interest rates trap us in lifelong debt, whilst the onward march of UKIP is seeing the country list so far to the right a capsize seems almost inevitable. In short: the ship is sinking, yet the idiots at the NUS are content to rearrange the deck chairs. Despite the NUS leadership declaring their support for the demonstration, it has always remained clear that they are far more serious about their careers in the Labour party than free education. Less than a year after students rejected the oppressive ‘safety’ of Police violence at the #copsoffcampus mobilisations, the NUS - in the interests of ‘safety’ - have demanded ever closer collaboration with the Police. Safety for who exactly? Certainly not those who have had their skulls smashed in the interests of unaccountable managers, or those in working class communities who experience the daily grind of economic, racialised and misogynistic Police oppression. Unsurprisingly, having failed in their demands to make everything worse, the NUS has not only withdrawn its support, but is seeking to actively undermine the demonstration. What better metaphor for a faceless, bureaucratic and irrelevant organisation than for it to pull its support due to an “incomplete Risk Assessment”? Walking from A to B is not going to redress the assault on education and neither is standing in the rain at a rally squeezed into a side street. The program of lies, betrayal and paperwork offered by the NUS is not an alternative for those who wish to escape our current misery. By finding each other, together we have the power to collectively determine a future equitable to all*. We call out to all those who wish to salvage something from the terrible tactics of this demonstration. Our victories such as #copsoffcampus or the 3Cosas campaign weren’t won by A to B marches and photo opportunities but through students and workers fighting together. Let’s abandon the pitiful rally of top table speakers. Let’s hold an open assembly to meet each other as friends and discuss how we can fight on our campuses. As the march enters Parliament Square, we urge you not to idly pass through but to take the green so we may collectively discuss proposals for action. Of course, just as parliament offers merely the spectacle of democracy, this assembly will also be performative. Thus we should consider it only the starting point, an opportunity to meet each other and the first move in a democratic claim; after all, heaven won’t be entered by consensus, but through assault. With a general election less than six months away, it is little wonder the police have undertaken such extensive measures to keep us out of parliament square. Why should we have to ask for their permission to assemble outside what is supposedly our parliament? Having completed our own risk assessment, we have concluded that the risks of marching into irrelevance far outweigh any concerns about contesting this space. It is clear we need new strategies if we are serious about fighting to win. We must utterly reject any idea that the NUS is an institution with student interests at its heart and must instead begin to organise strategies for how we fight back. As such we have suggested some demands - no doubt you will also have your own - as the initiation of a discussion, in parliament square, about how we can fight to win them. - The abolition of all tuition fees in UK higher education. - The cancellation of all student debt accrued under the fee regime so far - Re-introduction and extension of universal student grants - The democratisation of campuses. - An end to management structures, replacing them with communities of learning run by all* who inhabit, use and work at the university. - Completely open and common public access to all universities (including to lectures, libraries and resources) - A truly free education: a free curriculum; freedom from endless examinations; freedom from immigration restrictions and those racists in the UKBA; freedom from Police surveillance, harassment and violence. See you in Parliament Square. Comrades, tear down the fences! A communique from the SABBs (Students Against Banality and Boredom) *Except the cops.