National free education demo: a step forward
Posted on February 26, 2009
Filed Under News, Uncategorized
Around 700 or 800 students marched through London yesterday on the national demonstration against fees and marketisation organised by Education Not for Sale in alliance with other socialists, anti-capitalists and free education campaigners, as well as a number of student unions and the NUS Women’s, LGBT and Black Students’ Campaigns. (For a full list of the sponsoring organisations, see www.studentdemo2009.org.uk.)
The relatively small turn-out was reflective of the fact that the demonstrators came mainly from universities where the left has a strong base, and not from the majority of universities and colleges. There were decent turn outs from a number of unis, but only a small number. This is an indictment of NUS and the majority of student union leaderships, who refused to have anything to do with the demo and in fact no doubt worked against it.
Despite this, the fact that the demonstration took place was progress. Such is NUS’s inactivity that there has not been a national student demo since 2006; without this initiative, that three year gap could have lengthened to four years, five years or even longer. (It was also the first time that a national free education demo has been organised independently of NUS since the Campaign for Free Education demos of the late 1990s.) The fact that a broad variety of left-wing student activist groups were able to work with student unions in a democratic organising committee to organise the demo bodes well for future action. We have learnt important lessons which can put into practice next time.
ENS held a fringe meeting at the end of the demonstration, attended by about 40 activists including participants in a number of the Gaza occupations. We discussed the possibility of organising direct action over fees, something which is certainly necessary to win and seems much more viable in the wake of the Gaza movement; and also the idea of left-led student unions founding a new organising centre independent of the NUS structures. The latter is an idea that the majority of left activists are not convinced of; and some display a bizarrely heated, deeply conservative opposition to it. It is something that will need to be discussed further, and will be at the 7 March meeting called by ENS. (See here for the Facebook event.)
Whatever its limitations, the demonstration left student activists in a stronger position to take the struggle for free education forward.
A more detailed report and photos will be appear hear soon.
To email the demo organising committee with feedback or thoughts on the next steps, email studentdemo2009@gmail.com
For the Guardian’s report on the demo, see here
