I’m Clare Solomon; I’m the president of University of London Union, which is the largest universities’ union in Europe, with 125,000 members and [covering] 22 different colleges including SOAS, Kings, LSE … and a number of others … The University of London is a federal university, so the ULU is the umbrella union covering all those colleges, they all have their own independent unions as well.
The proposal to increase tuition fees from £3000 to anywhere up to £9000 at the same time as wanting to cut funding to education by up to 100% — arts and humanities are receiving 100% cuts to funding. Teaching budgets are being cut by 80% and research by 15%, which shows you what they want universities to be. They want research intensive universities because that attracts money to the university thereby accentuating divisions between elite and more working class universities.
[One of the things] we are against the “research assessment exercise”. The “research assessment exercise” is a sort of grading body that PhD students have to comply with and apply to for funding and it works on the basis of if your subject doesn’t have a quantifiable rate of return, so to speak, then you don’t get your funding, thereby sideling less business-oriented subjects. For example if you wanted to research, for example, LGBTI rights in India then you wouldn’t get funding for it. So it’s shaping research to the needs of the market and capitalism.
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It’s been known that fees were going to be increased for four to five years. This is one reason why [Labour Party students] smashed the constitution of the National Union Students, reduced the conference size … because they were obviously aware that this would happen, that students would want to rise up against it so they’ve done all they can to try to prevent any democracy and radicalism within the NUS.
Last year the Liberal Democrats had as one of their election manifesto pledges to reintroduce free education and they gained massive support from student voters on the basis of that promise. They did nationwide campus tours promising free education. Now that they’ve got this coalition they’ve got to comply with what the Tories want them to do. We’ve now heard, just recently actually, that the Lib Dems were lying anyway. I mean it’s a classic tactic, isn’t it — when you’re not in power you can say what you like.
But there were documents leaked that even before the elections in May last year the Lib Dems had no intention of introducing free education … They’ve lost a lot of support since they reneged on their promise. Students were very angry about it and they became the focus of a lot of protests and actions and occupations. We’ve been to [Lib Dem leader] Nick Clegg’s office, we’ve been to his surgeries occupying them.
On the day of the big protest on November 10 — the one that started it all off — the demonstration route went past the Lib Dem headquarters but it was set back off the road and the police put all their forces into protecting the Lib Dem headquarters, taking their eye off the fact that the Tory headquarters was also on the route. We didn’t even have to turn left or right, it was actually there. That shows how effective our campaign against the Lib Dems had been …
The November 10 demonstration had been built by the NUS (as well as, obviously, all the activists on the ground) on the basis of us having won a motion at the conference last year, the first time for years that we’ve managed to pass a motion for a national demonstration.
So we had the backing of the official union movement, both the NUS and the teachers union and UNISON [public sector trade union]. They were all supporting it and very actively building it. I was very impressed by the NUS at this stage.
We had between 50,000 and 70,000 students on that first demonstration, which was not expected. They really thought it was going to be about 10,000 to 15,000 — that’s what they told the police. I mean even we on the left were totally taken by surprise with the number of students there and the real range of students there too.
You can always tell when a movement has moved out further than the left when you see slogans on placards that are mildly offensive … there were a number of mildly sexist or homophobic placards. But that’s gone way — people have had one of the most rapid political educations.
That first demonstration was absolutely electric, especially when we occupied the Millbank Tory party headquarters. There were thousands and thousands of 14- 15- 16-year-old students, dancing, singing, hugging. It really was like a carnival of the oppressed.
It wasn’t just university students. The next demonstration, on November 24, was about 70-80% not university students. As was the next one. The last one was back to being Uni and FE (Further Education) students.
There’s a number of things that the high school and FE students are facing. They’re having their Education Maintenance Allowance cut — removed altogether. This a hardship fund of up to £30 a week that the poorer students are able to apply for — it’s means tested. They’re removing this.
This is a lifeblood for young students — a bit of pocket money, really. What I’ve noticed with the EMA students is that at the moment they only get it if they attend class 100%. If they’re five minutes late they don’t get it. So they already know now what it’s like to have a week without their pocket money. So for it to be cut altogether has really infuriated them — it’s created a new layer of anti-system activists.
So having their EMA removed and also the prospect of not being able to get into university. I’ve been told by my son — he’s an FE student — in the three weeks since the EMA cut was passed, his sociology class, for example, has gone from about 30 students down to three. It’s really rapid.
They’re also dropping out because they’re not going to be able to go to university anymore, so what’s the point in doing A-levels. So now you’re going to have even more unemployed [young people] who are not able to get a job and find it difficult to claim benefits. It’s a bit of a ticking time bomb really.
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[At the protests there were a lot of] people from much poorer backgrounds. There was a real noticeable mix from all different cultural backgrounds. It wasn’t just a lot of white people on the demonstration …
Of course there was anarchists on the demonstration and I’m glad there was anarchists on the demonstration — if they’re not demonstrating we’re doing something wrong! But it’s the classic attack from the media that the demonstration was infiltrated by groups of organised anarchists. But it wasn’t.
It was really a case of being brutalised by the police and “kettled” for nine hours in the freezing cold with no food, water or toilet facilities which made people angry. It made them need to, for a start, burn fires in order to keep themselves warm.
There were young women — 14-year-olds — with crop tops and ballet pumps on, they’d clearly never been on a demonstration before, with “Fuck fees” written on their belly, absolutely freezing.
For those that say the students were just bent on violence: well, that time when we were kettled for nine hours, we were on a street that had a number of shops, including a café that obviously had food and water and toilets, so if the students were just bent on violence, how come they didn’t break the windows and break in to feed themselves?
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There’s been a bit of a lull because of the Christmas period and exams and essay deadlines and things. We have had a demonstration of 10,000 to 15,000 on January 29. We’re now seeing occupations resurfacing, students going back into occupations. Some of them are the same ones as before — that were occupied last year when 50 universities and high schools were occupied.
The London Student Assembly had its largest ever assembly in the first week of term, before lectures started. So, clearly students still want to continue. Obviously there are some that are a bit demoralised because of the vote having been passed in parliament but because of the way we’ve been arguing the case — there’s been a high level of politics in everything we’re doing — people are aware that this isn’t the end of the road. “This is just the beginning” is the slogan everyone’s been using.
We’ve got the demonstration on March 26, which has been called by the TUC (Trade Union Congress). Again, when you have the official trade union structures calling something it means something significant is going on. This is what students are really good at doing: making the links between cuts to education and cuts to other public services, as part of a deeper ideological attack on the way that our countries are run.
So, we’re looking forwards to having a big education contingent on that demonstration. I don’t think we’re going to do a student-only bloc — we’re doing an education bloc with students and [education sector] workers.
We know that just because it’s passed the parliament doesn’t mean it can’t be overturned. We know that CP laws in France were overturned even though they’d been passed by parliament, the poll tax in England was abolished after sustained protest and non-payment campaigns. So we’re going to start looking at how are we going to up the ante … We’ve got a national student survey: we can boycott that which will have a significant effect on [university] management. It’s like a hotel ranking system and if we boycott that they don’t get their gold stars or whatever.
Obviously we can think about a mass non-payment campaign.
I think it’s very important to note that a lot of students who are demonstrating at the moment became involved in politics when the “Stop the war” demonstrations were at their peak seven years ago. They were the students that led the walkouts at a school level when they were 13, 14, 15. They’re now at university organising walkouts from universities and organising occupations.
Then, two years ago, the occupations over Gaza, which SOAS students started off, put the tactic of occupation back on the political map. People who were involved in those have generalised the tactic and used it for the education stuff.
It’s important that we make the links, like: why can’t they spend money on education because they’re spending money on war, and bailing out the banks — £1.3 trillion.
We know that if they even implemented measures to prevent tax avoidance that would plug the deficit by 80%. The other 20% could obviously be filled by no war and no Trident — it’s quite a simple argument. I do get sick of the right saying: “What’s your alternative? You never come up with any other plan.” But we do (and secondly, it’s not our job to) …
The idea that education doesn’t just benefit the individual who receives the education, that it benefits wider society has also taken hold. Students are really starting to recognise that and that therefore it shouldn’t be just the individual that pays for education. It should be through a progressive taxation system paid by those that are richer.
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I think the occupations were crucial for building the second, third and fourth demonstrations. If there hadn’t been the occupations I doubt that there would have been as large. Because the [occupied sites] were used as organising bases. Not only were they there to apply pressure to management but also they were very big democratic spaces that were open to all different groups and non-groups to come together and decided on things. They were used to hold public meetings in … paint banners …
The solidarity that comes from people who’ve occupied together, the sense that you are part of something bigger. Occupations are crucial but not the only thing. It’s also important to make sure we’re still pushing the trade unions and the NUS.
What we say with regard to the NUS is that if they fail to lead the movement, others will and if we are the others then so be it. But at the same time we need to recognise that the first demonstration wouldn’t have happened if we had not had the official movements, so we have to keep pushing them to back the things that we are proposing.
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