Introduction

In 1997 New Labour were elected to government. One of their first policy announcements was the abolition of free education. In September 1998 students were asked to pay tuition fees for the first time while a year later, students lost their entitlement to a maintenance grant.

Save Free Education warned from the beginning what the abolition of free education would mean; falls in applications to university and increased drop-out rates as thousands of students would find themselves unable to pay. These predictions have been borne out. in the first year of fees applications fell by 12.5% for people under 21 and by 30% for mature students. Since then their have been further falls in applications for the academic years 1999/2000 and 2000/01.

The prospects for tuition fees are looking far from rosy for the government. At the beginning of 2000, the Scottish parliament voted for the abolition of up-front tuition fees. New Labour in Scotland were forced to recognise that their new system was not working and that it was denying thousands of people the chance of an education. The abolition of up-front fees in Scotland has undoubtedly undermined their viability in the rest of Britain as well. With thousands of students unable to pay their fees, their existence is unjustifiable and looks increasingly untenable.

Ultimately, it will be organised mass opposition to fees amongst students that will force the government to abolish fees and to reinstate the grant. This is undoubtedly growing. November 2000 saw the biggest student demonstration in a decade, a result of anger at the abolition of free education. While students at Oxford University, Goldsmiths College, UCL and Guildhall are among those that have taken mass action including occupations to defend students who can not or will not pay their tuition fees. At these colleges and others across the country hundreds, probably thousands of students have embraced the idea of mass non-payment of tuition fees as the way that they can make sure the abolition of free education will be defeated.

Thousands have not paid their fees because they can simply not afford to pay. While many others have not paid on principle. At the end of the first year of the fees implementation £15 million worth of fees remained unpaid by students.

The purpose of this pack is to aid students in building on what has already been achieved by the campaigns at Oxford, Goldsmiths and elsewhere. Ultimately it aims to aid students in the building of a mass movement of non-payment on a national scale that will defeat the abolition of free education. It draws on lessons of past struggles such as the poll-tax, to offer a strategy and ideas on practically building it over the coming months.

Making the fees unworkable

SFE believe mass non-payment of tuition fees is the best way of winning back free education. Thousands of students can not afford to pay their fees. Non-payment can make the fees unworkable if these and thousands of other students take a stand and refuse to pay tuition fees on a national scale. The implementation of fees would literally be made impossible. Mass non-payment can hit the government where it hurts, in the pocket.

A well organised non-payment campaign backed by mass action could force universities into accepting the fact that the fees are uncollectable. Universities could be forced into refusing to collect the tuition fees for the government. If only a few universities refused to collect fees against a background of organised non-payment taking place all around the country then it would set a major precedent that could have a domino effect. The government would be forced into accepting that tuition fees are unforseeable and into re-instating free education.

In 1999-2000 Tuition fees were projected to provide £235 million. Failire to collect this money would cause a significant gap in the governments income.

Collective action works!

The strategy of non-payment has the potential to unite thousands of students throughout the country in common action against the fees. It enables every student who is asked to pay fees to take a positive and concrete step in defending free education.

To force the government to retreat over the abolition of free education, non-payment has to take place on a mass scale. Individuals or small groups of students who have not paid have been highly successful in creating a focus for the campaign and raising the profile of the non-payment campaign. Some brilliant victories have been won against college management's. However, if the government is to be forced to retreat then it will be vital that thousands of students, at universities across Britain, must take a decision across the country to withhold their fees.

A university management faced with mass non-payment of the fees involving hundreds of students refusing to pay their fees would find it impossible to exclude all those students if they are organised.

It is worth remembering that universities will be reluctant to exclude large numbers of students as they will lose the majority of the funding those students bring with them from local education authorities. In 1999-2000 public funding will account for 95.4% of HE funding and student contributions 4.6% (Times Higher Education Supplement, December 11 1998). A big percentage of this money from the state is distributed according to student numbers.

The examples of the occupations at Goldsmiths and elsewhere in the first half of 1999 show that where a university management tries to exclude students for non-payment, mass action can force the university to retreat.

In 1999 Students at Goldsmiths won their demands for no exclusions of students who could not afford to pay their fees. In the case of both occupations the university authorities were forced to concede the students demands. At Goldsmiths 500 students were involved in the occupation which lasted a week, eight students having been threatened with expulsion for not paying. At Guildhall where students found out about plans for expulsions the university backed down after 3 hours, 150 students having voted to immediately occupy the college.

Mass non-payment is happening

While we call on all students who have to pay fees to refuse to do so, for many students there is no choice; they can not afford to pay in the first place. Over the last two academic yeas, many thousands of students did not paid their fees because they did not have the money to. In 1999/2000 tuition fees equalling £15 million were still unpaid by the end of the year, 10% of the total. At some universities, especially the 'new' universities 40% of fees went unpaid. Plymouth ended the academic year owed between £100,000 and £150,000 while the university of Glamorgan was owed £1.1 million by 1,300 students, 500 of them first years.

Last year similar figures were repeated at universities up and down the country. For instance at Meanchester Metropolitan, more than 1.1 million is outstanding, including £80,000 still owedfrom the previous year.

In 2000/1 the numbers of students who don't pay simply because they can not afford to will be much higher. This will partly be because every student will be assessed for tuition fees. Many first and second years who scraped through and paid last year, will find it impossible to pay another time as their or their parent's finances dry up.

Hopefully it will also be because we are able to convince many students to withhold their fees in order to make the system unworkable.

Mass non-payment works!

The effectiveness of a mass campaign of non-payment has been proven in practice in the past. It was a mass campaign of non-payment that defeated the poll tax in 1991. 18 million people refused to pay the poll-tax making it impossible to implement. The anti-poll tax campaign has many important lessons for the campaign against tuition fees and the abolition of the grant which can be organised in much the same way. (see section on poll-tax at the back of the pack)

The levels of (unorganised) non-payment over the last two years shows the potential that a strategy of organised non-payment of tuition fees has. These levels of non-payment have clearly worried the vice-chancellors'. A rise in non-payment of only 3.3% would have taken it over the £20 million mark!.. This is the amount of money given to the universities in a contingency fund to cover non-payment. Clearly non-payment over and above this level will cause universities and ultimately the government some problems. At the end of the first year of the introduction of fees an editorial in the Times Higher Education Supplement expressed these fears saying, 'as news gets around that students owe universities millions of pounds, payment of tuition fees could become as voluntary as payment of the poll tax by students in the 1980s...' (THES 30.7.99).

The analogy with the poll-tax is an apt one. After the first year of the poll tax in England and Wales 12.8% of the total amount billed had not been paid - not much more than the 10% unpaid in tuition fees after their first year. However in the second year of the poll-tax, 21% remained uncollected . This amount continued to grow, so that in the final year before the poll-tax was abolished, councils had to send reminders to 88% of those billed. If we organise an effective campaign we can ensure that the same will develop around the non-payment of tuition fees.

What about the grant?

For many of the poorest students the abolition of the grant may has had more of an effect than the introduction of fees. SFE believe that the best way of winning back the grant as well as defeating fees is through the strategy of mass non-payment of fees as described in this pack.

By making the fees unworkable through non-payment and mobilising a mass movement behind our demands we can force the government to concede to them. With the government on the defensive due to mass non-payment we would be in a stronger position to win the re-instatement of the grant. But this means consistently raising the need for the reinstatement of the grant in all our material and lists of demands as SFE does.

Students who do not pay fees have a vital role to play in the campaign. These students can help build and participate in mass action to defend non-payers from exclusion and penalisation. All the campaigns to defend non-payers at the various universities where action has taken place have involved many students who have not had to pay fees. Without their support the campaign is much less likely to succeed.

The Law

Some students may worry about the legal consequences of not paying their fees. However, the legal sanctions available to the university to use against non-payers are limited. They relate to the non-payer's status as a student not as a citizen of the British state. By refusing to pay his or her fees a student is merely breaking his or her contract with the university. This is not a criminal offence, so a university can not prosecute a current student in court for non-payment of fees. The actions a university can take against non-payers are restricted to expulsion, denying students access to facilities etc.

Obviously, expulsion is a pretty serious sanction for any student. However, the strategy of mass non-payment of tuition fees together with mass action, has the potential to prevent students being subject to expulsion. A mass movement can and must be built that can force university managements not to take action in the form of expulsions etc, against students who do not pay. If hundreds refuse to pay at a single university, with the support of other students behind them, all prepared to take action to defend non-payers, then it would be very difficult for a university to kick students off their courses.

While mass non-payment and action must form the back bone of the campaign, other avenues can be pursued in conjunction with mass non-payment. This can include using the law to the best of our advantage.

It may be necessary at times to use the courts tactically, to challenge a court order for the eviction of an occupation for example. Of course, the different factors involved must be weighed up in each case before taking legal action. For instance the question of cost, the chances of winning, whether taking legal action is the best use of the campaigns resources etc must be considered

Building mass non-payment

For the campaign against tuition fees and the abolition of the grant to be successful, it is essential that the campaign of non-payment is built now.

Pledge Cards
Critical to the campaign is making sure thousands of students pledge not to pay their fees. SFE have produced non-payment pledge cards to aid with this. By signing a pledge card a student commits his or herself to not paying fees. Pledge cards are very important for the success of the campaign. Student unions can produce their own version of them if necessary.

Signing a pledge card makes students feel part of a wider movement. It also allows the campaign to keep a record of the number of pledges.

Of course, a pledge-card is not a legally binding document. No one will expect students to refuse to pay if no-one else does at their college, even if they have filled in a card. Building the numbers of non-payers is vital. A small number of non-payers taking a stand in defiance of the university can play a very good role in helping to build the campaign. However, if a small group of students are in danger of getting kicked off their course because they are on their own, then their expulsion would serve no useful purpose.

By getting large numbers of students signed up to pledge cards though, you will increase the confidence of both people who have pledged and those who have not, to refuse to pay their fees. Only then, with a higher level of non-payment, will it be possible to stop the university from excluding students.

Pledge cards should also be used to commit students who do not have to pay fees to taking part in mass action to defend those that are asked to pay.

Non-payment groups
To build non-payment effectively students have to be organised. SFE/Non-payment groups need to be set up at as many sixth forms, colleges and universities as possible to organise the campaign.

Student unions should put the their support and authority behind organising such a group. However, in many universities and colleges the Students' Union will not support a campaign of mass non-payment. Where this is the case students must organise without the students union.

Non-payment groups should meet on a regular basis. The meetings should be open to all students and well publicised. Don't be disheartened if the meetings are small to begin with. That can change very rapidly.

The groups prime roles must be to increase and spread support for non-payment through the campaign including action, to collect as many pledges as possible and to defend students who have not paid, organise solidarity action with students elsewhere etc.

The SFE non-payment groups should organise regular activity around their college campus. Well decorated stalls with petitions, pledge-cards and leaflets explaining the strategy and the latest stages in the campaign, should be organised. These should be used as a means of reaching students, explaining the strategy of non-payment to them and asking them to fill in pledge cards and get involved in the campaign, to come to the next meeting etc.

Launching the campaign
If you want to build a non-payment campaign at your college or university you can begin straight away. Ideally you will be beginning at the start of the academic year, so you can persuade students not to withold their fees before they can pay their first installment.

Whether you are starting your campaign in the Autumn term or later in the year it is important that you make a plan of action and steps to spread non-payment. It may be necessary to take action to defend students that are being prevented from re-registering because they have not paid last years fees.

If you are making plans for the Autumn you could try and contact any students who have pledged not to pay their fees the previous year, before they start back. You may be able to obtain lists of next years freshers so you can contact them over the summer.

Waste no time when you start back. It will be important to reach as many students as possible as early as possible to persuade them not to pay. Leaflet the queues of students registering in freshers' weeks and get them to pledge not to pay their fees. If the Students Union supports non-payment see if you can put a leaflet in every freshers' pack.

Explain to students that are not sure about withholding their fees that they can decide not to pay their fees for a few months and see how the campaign develops, then decide whether to continue to withhold their fees.

We can point out that in previous years many universities did not threaten to expel students. Those that have done did not do so until six or even nine months after students were asked to pay. This allows students to hold out for a long time if they are not sure about non-payment.

Demonstrations and other protests should be planned in the first weeks of term to demand that all of last years students are re-registered regardless of whether they have paid their fees; that there should be no more exclusions; and for the government to abolish fees and reinstate the grant.

Plans should include:
To call a mass meeting as soon as possible.
This can be a SU General Meeting. Otherwise call a meeting yourself. At the meeting a motion can be moved in support of mass non-payment at which all the students present vote to refuse to pay their fees, take action to support other non-payers and to build the campaign. Students can be asked to fill in pledge cards at the meeting and a non-payment society formally established.

All the students who have pledged not to pay their fees at the university should be asked to attend the meeting and it should be as widely publicised as possible around the campus, halls etc with leaflets and posters.

Call a demonstration/protest for free education and for mass non-payment of tuition fees in the first two weeks of term. Demand no exclusions and for second year students who owe fees to the university to be re-registered. It will be important to make an immediate impact and to give students the confidence not to pay their fees by organising action at the beginning of term on your campus/university/area. This must be just the first action in a rolling programme of local and national action.

Produce your propaganda. Produce posters and leaflets appealing for students to refuse to pay their fees. Explain how non-payment will work, how many students have already refused to pay their fees, that our strength lies in our numbers etc. Put forward our demand on the university management not to collect the fees, for no exclusions etc.

Press Release. Write and send out a press release to the local media, detailing the numbers of student non-payers who "Cant Pay! Won't Pay!" their tuition fees. Announce that you will be organising action to defend the right to a free education and appeal for all students to join the campaign and refuse to pay their tuition fees. Explain the demands on both the government and on the university management. Explain that your action is part of a national campaign and strategy.

Demand a response from management to our demands. Demand that they will agree not to collect tuition fees (very unlikely at first), ask them what their plans are regarding collecting tuition fees and what action they will take if students do not pay. (It will be important to find as much out about this as possible from other sources such as university publications, trade unionists at the university etc.) Demand no exclusions etc.

These plans will form only the beginning of the years campaign. It will be essential to maintain the momentum through a rolling programme of mass action; demonstrations (national and local), stunts, occupations, strikes and to use this action to constantly spread non-payment.

Of course the campaign will not necessarily take off at the beginning of the autumn term. In previous years it has taken until the spring term for the threat of sanctions and exclusions by universities to spark action.

Even if the term starts slowly you should persist. If allot of students seem to have paid their first instalment of the fees, then you can go back and persuade them to not to pay their second and third. Though, even when it seems that a lot of students have paid initially, it will almost certainly turn out that this is not the cases at all. A lot of students may not pay but 'keep their heads down' until they are threatened with expulsion.

So even when things seem to be going slowly it is important to keep building the campaign and laying the ground work for successful action at a later stage.

Organising a non-payment society

Establishing a non-payment society can be crucial to the success of the campaign. It is the means of involving as wide as possible number of students in organising and building the campaign. It must be the forum for debating questions of strategy and tactics during the movement and must therefore be completely democratic.

Its elected representatives must be accountable to the society. All students must be able to join and to attend the meetings and vote.

As the campaign develops it may be the case that a network of non-payment groups and societies emerges around the country. In which case it will be necessary to create a national body and structures in which the different groups can come together and co-ordinate the struggle on a national level.

Trade Unions
It is extremely important to try and involve staff and lecturing trade unionists at the university in the campaign from the beginning. Their interests are intricately bound with those of students and they will almost certainly support the principle of free education anyway.

By involving trade unionists the campaign can be greatly strengthened. The trade unions can play quite a crucial role in the campaign at a university at certain stages of the movement. Their support will be especially important in defending students from exclusion.

The trade union reps at your college or campus should be approached by members of the SFE group. You can ask to speak to their next meeting and explain about the campaign and how it will work, what they can do to practically help. Any links you build should be maintained by regular visits to the trade union reps. Representatives of the trade unions should be invited to the SFE/non-payment group organising meetings.

You should also try and establish a Joint Committee involving both student and trade union representatives which could meet on a regular basis to discuss the campaign for free education and also the trade unions campaigns for better pay etc.

The main FE and HE trade unions are: the Association of University Teachers (AUT) mainly at 'old' universities, NATFHE, who are mostly organised at 'new' universities and FE colleges, and UNISON who will usually represent the staff. The GMB and MSF also often represent certain types of workers in HE. The addresses and phone numbers of trade union representatives at a university can usually be found on the university web site.

FEs and Sixth Forms
The involvement of FE and Sixth form students in the campaign is very important. While not everything that is written in this pamphlet is immediately applicable to FE/6th formers, much of it is and campaigns can be built in these colleges as part of a campaign of mass non-payment.

It will be important for SFE groups to be set up at FE and sixth form colleges around the country. These will be vital in building national action and local demonstrations, walk-outs etc. FE students will also be able to take solidarity action in support of university students who do not pay fees, particularly at their local university. Sixth form and FE students should make contact with the campaigns at their local university, while university students should try and spread their campaign to the FEs.

While Sixth form and FE students do not pay fees, pledges can be collected, especially amongst second years who plan to go to university next year (in case fees have not been abolished by then).

Ultimately the responsibility for introducing tuition fees and abolishing the grant lies with the government and it is the government that will have to reverse the abolition of free education. But unfortunately it is the university managements that are taking the decisions to expel and penalise individual students for not being able to afford their fees. Therefore, students are forced to place demands on university management and make them a focus for the campaign.

The campaign should put a number of demands on university managements:

No collection of the fees. The university should refuse to collect the tuition fees because of their fundamentally unjust nature.

For the university to call on the government to abolish tuition fees, reinstate the grant, and provide funding from somewhere other than tuition fees to fill the shortfall. The university should join with students in campaigning for free education, rather than kicking them off their courses and denying them an education.

No expulsions. Re-register all second year non-payers. No student should be denied their right to a free education whether they have not paid because they can not afford it or if they are taking a stand in defence of free education *.

Full access to all facilities and services.

Open the books. University management may claim that they can not afford not to collect the fees. The management should allow students to see for themselves the state of the finances of the university so they can decide if that is true.

Run a deficit budget. If necessary the university should go into deficit by borrowing the money to pay fees off the banks rather than deny students an education, until the government reinstates free education.

No cuts. The cost of unpaid tuition fees should not be passed onto students and staff in the form of cuts in staff and facilities. The government should pay money to the universities equal to the cost of tuition fees plus what extra is required to ensure universities are adequately funded.


A campaign of mass non-payment backed up by mass action can force universities to accede to these demands. If enough universities do so then the tuition fees will be made uncollectable.

No expulsions: Note

*This is an important point! The university management should not decide who can afford to pay and who can not. Firstly, if the campaign is to work then it depends on all students standing together and refusing to pay, to defend the principle of free education. No one should have to pay fees. The university will deliberately try and create an artificial divide between students who they claim 'can afford to pay' and those that can not, to divide students. We should point out, how can anyone, especially a university management define what constitutes 'ability to pay'. Many students might have the option of taking out another loan, working even more hours, or eating less etc in order to pay their fees. Again, this demonstrates that a divide between students who are supposedly 'able to afford fees' and those who can not is false and arbitrary.

When the universities threaten non-payers

Defending non - payers
Any threat to enforce sanctions or expel non-payers by university management must be responded to immediately. The campaign must mobilise as many students as possible in defence of the non-payers. It will be necessary to call for action of some sort. To defend non-payers it may be necessary to organise pickets, demonstrations, walk-outs and if necessary occupations.

As soon as you hear of threats of expulsion it will be necessary to call and build a mass meeting. This will hopefully attract students under threat as well as others who want to take action to defend them. At the meeting you can put forward a course of action.

Mass Action
The successes of the occupations at Goldsmiths and Guildhall in forcing the university managements to agree not to exclude any student who can not afford to pay their fees shows the potential the campaign has. We must make it clear that we are prepared to take similar at any university in the country if the university or college management say that they will expel students for not paying their fees.

The type of action that is called will depend on the circumstances; the stage of the campaign, the mood amongst students etc. We must not make a fetish out of any particular type of action but base our tactics on what the situation demands at the time.

It is absolutely key that we build mass action not merely direct action by a few individuals. Some groups believe that direct action alone is capable of defeating the abolition of free education. But we must make it clear that only mass action involving hundreds of thousands of students across Britain will defeat the fees and the abolition of the grant and that this in turn must be centred around the strategy of mass non-payment.

Of course our initial demonstrations and protests will often be small, that is to be expected. But we must constantly be trying to expand our numbers and involving ever greater numbers of students and workers. History demonstrates that a mass movement alone is the only sure way that the abolition of free education will be defeated.

Occupations
At a certain stage in the campaign it may be necessary to occupy in order to defend non-payers. However, occupations require a lot of thought and planning if they are to be a success.

An indefinite occupation is usually seen as a step to take when things have reached a critical stage or when other forms of protest have been shown to have failed. It is necessary for there to be widespread preparedness amongst students to take decisive action and to occupy over the demands of the campaign.

If there is support for the idea of occupation amongst students then it will be important to try and convince as many others as possible of the need for occupation from an early stage as well as preparing all students for the eventuality. Hopefully, previous action, demos etc will have prepared students for the eventuality and raise their confidence to take this sort of action.

To call an occupation, a mass meeting should normally be called, at which as many students as possible should be encouraged to attend. Assuming there is the numbers, you will presumably go into immediate occupation, something that students should preferably be aware of before hand. You will already have decided on which building/area you plan to occupy and should have given plenty of thought to other logistical questions such as how you will take control of the building.

Once the business of establishing the occupation has been completed, it will be necessary to begin to spread it, plans for which should already be in place. It is absolutely essential for the success of the occupation that you continually strive to increase the numbers of students involved in the occupation and increase its support inside and out of the university and amongst staff.

One of the dangers of any occupation is that the students inside isolate themselves from those not involved in it. The university authorities will constantly try and create divisions between the two sets of students and use them against the occupation. For these reasons the occupation must produce leaflets, posters and news sheets to explain why the occupation is taking place and why other students should join it. This material must take up the misinformation and lies that the university management will spread through their own propaganda. It is vital that the blame for any disruption is placed firmly on the shoulders of the management for excluding students and denying them their right to a free education. Make clear that the university authorities left students with no option but to occupy, in the propaganda that you produce.

Of course, our ultimate aim is the complete abolition of tuition fees and the reinstatement of the grant, not against immediate exclusions alone. For this reason occupations must always be used to raise the profile of, and spread mass non-payment. It is ultimately non-payment that must be the back-bone of the campaign and is most likely to force the government to retreat. Non-payment also provides students with a means of continuing the campaign after an occupation succeeds or fails (if it is physically broken up etc).

Students unions
The question of the role of the students unions is an important one which could come up a lot during the campaign. SFE believe that as the bodies that are elected by and supposed to be representative of students, SUs should be to the forefront of any campaign defending the interests of students. This is especially so with the campaign to defend free education and building the strategy of mass non-payment of the fees.

Student Unions can give the strategy of non-payment a much greater authority by putting their weight behind it and have the resources to make it more effective.

However, the role of the NUS at a national level in sabotaging and undermining action to defend students is well known. The New Labour leadership of NUS have gone out of their way to prevent a movement developing that will seriously challenge the government. Unfortunately many students unions at a local level are only to happy to follow their national leadershipís lead. Where a student union tries to put obstacles in the way of the movement then the movement must go over its head. While the support of students unions can be a massive benefit to the campaign, students can not (and will not) rely on them where the support does not exist. The movement must first and foremost be built on the ground.

Of course there are also good student unions that will support non-payment from the outset. Some of these have already began to carry out the strategy outlined in this pamphlet. There are others which may not initially support non-payment but which will support the strategy when the movement gathers momentum and mass non-payment becomes a fact on the ground. This is another reason why students must build the strategy on the ground now. Because only by building mass non-payment will many student unionists be persuaded to join the campaign.

Legal liability
Some student unions may have concerns over whether they will be acting illegally, by breaching the ultra vires laws by supporting non-payment. Some students unions that support non-payment have taken a decision to give support and help to an independent non-payment society at their university without directly being responsible for organising non-payment itself. In fact where ever a student union is building non-payment it should ensure that a non-payment society is set up in which all students who wish to can participate in and democratically control.

Ultimately, the ability of any student union to both effectively defend its students and to withstand the attacks of management, depends on the success of the SU to mobilise students behind it.



Some questions on non-payment answered.

Will enough students refuse to pay the fees?
Many thousands of students have already not paid the fees, because they can not afford them. This is proven by figures made publicly available by the universities and from the experience of SFE activists. Of course, we have to make sure that these students are organised, so that no one gets expelled or penalised for not paying.

We also have to call for other students to join them in not paying. Campaigns at Oxford and elsewhere have shown that students are willing to refuse to pay on principle to defend free education. A well organised campaign, involving mass demonstrations and other action will give students who are not sure about refusing to pay or who can afford to pay the confidence to make a stand. This is why non-payment pledge cards are so important.

The poll-tax showed that when such a campaign is organised then people will refuse to pay.

Can the government really be defeated?

Again, it comes back to the question of building a mass campaign. History shows that faced with a mass movement governments have been defeated and conceded the demands of the movement many times, such as the defeat of the poll-tax.

Just as with the poll-tax, if the fees are made unworkable by mass non-payment then the government can be forced to scrap them and reinstate the grant.

Won't non-payment harm universities rather than the government?
Ultimately the campaign is directed against the government. It is the government that must decide to reinstate free education. However, it is the universities that are responsible for implementing the collection of tuition fees. They are the bodies that are actually expelling students for not paying their fees.

We call on universities to join with students in campaigning for free education and to make it clear to the government that they do not intend to continue to collect the fees.

Free education is a right and if universities decide to deny students that right, then students must campaign to make sure that they do not get away with it. Universities should be places of learning, they should not deny students an education because it is too expensive.

If necessary universities should go into deficit until the government conceded free education, rather than kick students off their courses for not paying their fees.

What is wrong with richer students paying fees?

The introduction of tuition fees was never about making the rich pay for education and certainly not making access more equal as the government claimed when it introduced the abolition of free education.

If the government really wants the rich to pay a greater proportion than the poor towards the education system then it could increase the higher bands of income tax, which it doesnít do.

The real effect of the abolition of free education is to reduce he amount of working class and poor people going to university. This is shown by the figures; applications for 1998-9 fell by 12.5% for 18-20 year olds, 30% for 21-14 and 33% for over 24 year olds. The figures for 1999-2000 are another 0.5%, 9.2% and 10% respectively on top of that.

Why is the government scrapping free education?

The abolition of free education is about firstly, reducing the amount of money the state pays towards free education and secondly about restricting access to higher education to the working class in particular. Just like the Tories, New Labour are a party of big business and are continuing in the same spirit. Just like the Tories they are intent on reducing the amount of money that the state takes from big business, those few multi-million pound profit making companies that control the British economy. This means making the working class and middle classes pay for education and the costs of the welfare state.

They want to reduce the numbers of working class young people going into higher education because neither the government nor big business thinks it is profitable paying to educate young people to degree level when they can not provide them with degree level jobs at the end of their course. They are particularly opposed to the arts and humanities etc, courses which are not seen as useful to industry. The abolition of free education has been successful in reducing the numbers applying for those types of courses.

British big business would sooner see working class people do vocational courses which are more directly related to its needs. That is why David Blunkett, the Education Secretary wants to limit the increase in university places by 6000 in 2000 and increase the numbers going into FEs by 109,000 in 2000-1 and 340,000 in 2002-3.

Where will the money come from to fund free education, if the government scraps fees?

There are plenty of sources for the money to fund free education:

The monarchy - it costs the state £1billion a year.
If corporation tax was raised to the level of the EU average it would raise £10 billion.
VAT of 17.5% on private health and insurance would raise £900 million.
Cuts in spending on arms merely to the EU average would raise £6.3 billion.
The wealthiest 500 people in Britain are worth £71 billion.
The government recently obtained £22.5 billion by selling new licences for mobile phones. However, instead of using it to fund free education or the health service they are using it to pay off the national debt.
The amount of money raised by tuition fees pales in comparison with these figures; they will only contribute £235m towards the funding of Higher Education in 1999-2000.

The lessons of the poll-tax

MARCH 1989: The poll tax became law in Scotland. Mass non-payment was about to begin.

The biggest campaign of civil disobedience ever seen in Britain was about to take place. By the end, Thatcherís hated poll tax would lie in ruins and Thatcher herself would be gone.

MARCH 1999: Occupations and demonstrations are taking place in Londonís colleges. Students are organising to defend non-payers and against the tuition fees. Mass non-payment is being proposed as the tactic to defeat the governmentís tuition fees.



JULIE DONOVAN, secretary of the London Anti-Poll Tax Federation and a national committee member of the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation, looks at how mass non-payment of the poll tax was organised, and what lessons it holds for the campaign to beat tuition fees and the abolition of the grant today.

THE POLL tax or 'Community Charge' was a blatant attempt to tax the poor and benefit the rich. Previously, local taxes or rates had been related to the size of your house and area you lived in.

With the poll tax, however, everyone, whether a dustman or a duke, paid the same amount and everyone over 18 had to pay. A family of four who had previously paid one annual bill of roughly £400-£500 now had to pay £500-£600 each or a total bill of over £2,000.

The injustice of this was clear to everyone but how could it be defeated? Thatcher had been in power for ten years, the only defeat she had suffered had been inflicted by the Militant-led Liverpool city council.

Trade union leaders were refusing to fight. Demonstrations, always an important part of any struggle, were clearly not going to be enough.

We needed a tactic that hit the government where it hurt - in its pocket. We needed a weapon they couldn't ignore. Mass non-payment was the key.

Scotland
But how to get it? The first step was to get people organised. We knew many wouldnít be able to pay but isolated and alone they were vulnerable to the courts and bailiffs. In Scotland we began to set up the anti-poll tax unions (APTUs), based in the communities.

THE POLL tax had been introduced in Scotland a whole year before the rest of the country. They were to be the guinea pigs - what a mistake!

The Scottish anti-Poll Tax Federation (the Fed) was established by Militant (now the Socialist Party). In the housing schemes of Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow it began to organise non-payment.

By the time the poll tax became law in England and Wales a million Scots were refusing to pay. Mass non-payment was a reality. Now the task was to spread the campaign.

All the time we were being told that non-payment was a mistake, it was against the law, it could never work. The reality was the same as it is today with the fees. Thousands of people were simply unable to pay.

The choice was either to leave them to the mercy of the courts or to organise to defend them. In Scotland councils had tried to use Sheriff officers (bailiffs) to collect the poll tax by force -taking peopleís furniture and belongings, but the Scottish Anti-Poll Tax Federation (The Fed) had made that a non-starter.



The Glasgow Evening Times described the campaign:

'Using tactics modelled on the South African townships many areas have become no-go areas for sheriff officers, with literally hundreds of pairs of eyes on the lookout... While it is certain Militant has been involved in the campaign's organisation, go into one of the dozens of meetings that take place in the city every week and it's not loony lefties you'll find but housewives and kids.... they're the backbone of a campaign which has undoubtedly put the uncollectable into the poll tax.'

Militant
From day one the Militant had built the campaign in Scotland, using non-payment pledge cards to set up local APTUs. Now following their example, Militant and the APTU in England and Wales, who had been assisting, advising and learning from the campaign in Scotland, set about building mass non-payment.

THE APTUs played a vital role in fighting the propaganda battle - giving people the confidence to stand firm. For example they produced window posters.

'I'm not paying the poll tax'
Seeing hundreds of 'I'm not paying the poll tax' posters up in your neighbours' windows was a big morale boost - you knew you were not alone.

Our next task was to defend non payers. In England and Wales the councils had to take people to court. The APTUs organised meetings and publicity under the slogan: don't panic, don't pay. Turn up at court'.

Our first weapon was numbers. The councils were having to issue thousands of notices to non-payers and we made sure they all turned up at court, Southwark council in south London had issued 5,000 summonses and 500 people turned up a Camberwell Magistrates Court on the first day. It was brilliant, the courts were completely swamped.

APTU members were jumping up onto tables to explain to people about the campaign and their rights, everyone agreed to stay put until the court adjourned all cases.

sheer weight of numbers
At first we defeated the courts through sheer weight of numbers but we also used the tactic of 'Mackenzie's Friend'. This was the legal precedent that allowed defendants to take a 'friend' (or member of the APTU ) into court to argue their case.

We would question the council officers and dispute liability. 'Who set the rate? Who decided I was liable? Can you prove you sent me the bill? How? Who posted it? Have you got the receipt for the stamps?'

A fairly basic weapon soon developed into something more sophisticated as hundreds of workers suddenly discovered they had legal talents. The court backlog grew longer by the day and legal battles were being won.

Eventually the council won liability orders, which gave them the right to use bailiffs or deduct from people's wages. Inspired by the battle in Scotland we set up 'Bailiff Busting' squads.

Whenever the bailiffs were expected we were there first, ready to defend the non-payers.

Tories
THATCHER AND the Tories were aghast at the revolt they had unleashed. Years of anger at the vicious anti-working class policies of the Tories had found an outlet. 18 million people were refusing to pay their poll tax.

The councils were threatening people with jail and some people did actually go to prison - including a number of Militant members such as Tommy Sheridan and Terry Fields MP. Jailings were used by vindictive Labour and Tory councils to try and scare people, but did not make a big dent in the campaign - after all they couldn't jail 18 million!

On 21 March 1991, four months after Thatcher's forced resignation, cabinet minister Michael Heseltine announced the biggest political retreat of the 20th century. 'We have therefore decided that from the earliest possible moment the community charge will be replaced by a new system of local taxation'. The poll tax had been defeated and Thatcher was gone. The Financial Times described it as 'the most expensive mistake in modern political history', and called its abolition 'one of the most spectacular U-turns for any government this century'.

Lessons

TODAY THE lessons for the fight against tuition fees are clear.

Firstly, mass non-payment beat the poll tax - the government wasn't able to ignore it! Secondly there was the need to be organised: the SFE groups need to be based in colleges and then linked to an area or city-wide federation.

Thirdly, information is vital in a battle like this. The APTUs produced millions of leaflets and posters. Demonstrations also play an important role and they don't always have to be big.

Also vital to remember is the fact we were always asking: 'Will it work? How will it be organised?'. The reality was that many of the tactics and strategy were developed during the campaign.

The demonstration - Mass non-payment backed by mass action
THE PIVOTAL moment of the anti-poll tax campaign were demonstrations called by the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax demonstration on 31 March 1990. No-one who was there will ever forget it.

We needed to show our strength and to take our message onto the streets.

The All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation and Militant produced tens of thousands of leaflets and posters to mobilised Britains biggest demonstrations in 150 years - 50,000 in Glasgow and 200,000 in London.

Britains biggest demonstrations in 150 years
The Spanish newspaper El Mundo described the enormity of it:

'It was ten past one when the head of the demonstration marched into Northumberland Avenue. From the foot of Nelsonís column you could see a human flood advancing. It advanced very slowly, to the echo of drums, the sound of whistles and chanting amidst a sea of red flags.'

The ruling class were in shock. Up and down the country the setting of local poll tax rates had been met by mass lobbies of the town halls. To the outside world it must have seemed that the whole of Britain was in revolt. Now on this sunny Saturday, over a quarter of a million people were marching.

In London, the Metropolitan Police viciously attacked the demonstration. Mounted police rode into the crowds of workers and young people, truncheons were smashed into people's heads. People defended themselves and the ensuing riot raged through the West End.

As dramatic as it was, the riot alone did not defeat the poll tax. The ruling class swept up and tried to carry on as usual. But the demo had shown to everyone the huge size and strength of the campaign.