Student Demonstration in London (UK)

ON the 20th of February 2002, Between 5,000 and 10,000 students gathered in London this week for the UK  National Union of Students annual demonstration for reform of education funding. Although the event received excellent media coverage, it was significantly smaller than both last year's demonstration (15,000-20,000) and the NUS's predictions. It seems likely, moreover, that this is how the NUS leaders wanted it to be.

When Tony Blair's Labour government introduced tuition fees of £1,000 (about 1,700 Euro) and abolished student maintenance grants in 1998, the Labour-dominated leadership of NUS effectively accepted these attacks, and it was left to the Campaign for Free Education and local student unions to organise students in opposition to the government. Mass demonstrations, non-payment campaigns and countless local protests and lobbies finally paid off last year, when the government floated the idea of restoring maintenance grants and announced a comprehensive review of student funding. (This followed the decision of the autonomous assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to partially reverse the government's cuts.)

Under pressure from activists on the ground, and CFE members of the NUS's national executive, the leadership has begun organising demonstrations again and shifted its policy on student funding marginally to the left. But it still refuses to demand really free education (it supports only means-tested grants and calls for the introduction of a graduate tax to replace tuition fees), and it is still unwilling to do anything which might really embarrass its friends in the government. Hence the comparatively small size of this year's demonstration; terrified at what 20,000+ students marching past Parliament might mean, the NUS leadership made an absolutely deliberate decision to organise the demonstration in the second term of the year - despite the fact that far fewer students would be able to attend at this
time - and failed to send our publicity until a few weeks beforehand.

Not content with sabotaging the organisation of the march, NUS President Owain James and Vice-President (Education) Brookes Duke - both 'independent' fellow travellers of the Labour Students faction on the NUS national executive - refused to support University of East London and CFE students trying to organise marchers for a sit-down protest outside Tony Blair's Downing Street residence. As it turned out, even rhetorical daring was too much for the so-called leaders of the British student movement. When the march reached Trafalgar Square for its final rally, they dismissed the calls of trade union speakers - trade union speakers that they themselves had
invited! - for increased progressive taxation to fund free education for all, and filled their speeches with references to the need for 'targeting' and means-testing.

This rather pathetic attitude was not reflected by the mass of students on the demonstration, however - a large number of placards and banners expressed marchers' opposition to a graduate tax, and the phrase 'free education' was heard far more than it has been in the recent past.

The NUS leadership's strategy is almost identical to that which allowed Labour to get away with introducing tuition fees in the first place. With the government retreating on education funding, British students need to make sure it is their agenda, and not that of big business, which is heard. But they will only be able to do that if NUS starts doing what a union is supposed to - fighting not for its leaders' careers but its members' interests. The CFE will be campaigning inside NUS to make sure that happens.

By Sacha Ismail
Campaign for Free Education Steering Committee in the United Kingdom.
- For more information on the demo, visit www.nus.org.uk (but treat the figures with extreme scepticism) and www.educationet.org