Momentum backs National Demonstration for Free Education
Momentum is supporting the National Demonstration for Free Education taking place in London on Wednesday November 15th.
Called by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) in the wake of the government defeat on tuition fees on September 13th, the student demonstration seeks to capitalise on the division between the Tories and the DUP as well as the need for the Conservatives to appeal to younger voters.
Organisers expect more than ten thousand students to attend the Momentum backed demonstration, with more than 60 universities and colleges actively mobilising across the country including Durham, Oxford and Cambridge and students travelling to London from as far as Aberdeen, Bangor and Falmouth.
The demonstration follows significant student mobilisations in 2014 when 10,000 students attended a demonstration in support of scrapping tuition fees, and the recent NUS campaign to boycott the National Student Survey which was backed by 25 universities including Warwick, Oxford and Cambridge.
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said: “'Everybody should have access to high quality education from the cradle to the grave, without being forced into debt and anxiety. No one should be shut out. That's why I support the demonstration for free education on the 15th of November organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts and backed by students unions and Momentum. Together we can build a movement to demand high quality education for the many, not the few. And in government, Labour will deliver it.'
Sahaya James, a student and member of Momentum’s National Coordinating Group, said: “Momentum will be organising up and down the country to ensure thousands of students and young people turn out on November 15th. A generation of people are being sold out by a minority government with vanishing credibility. Momentum significantly contributed to Labour’s extraordinary electoral comeback. Now we’re backing the fight for free eduction and ramping up the pressure on this increasingly shambolic government. ”
Zoe Yibowei, a student at UAL and first time demonstrator, said: "It was student activism and demos that forced free education onto the agenda, and it will also be activists that keep the government under pressure. It was young people who took Corbyn's manifesto pledge to abolish tuition fees door to door and took away the government's majority. And it's us that will go beyond fees and win living grants for all and an end to campus cuts".