“We Need Direct Action to Stop Cuts”: Student Voices from Goldsmiths & Strategies We Need to Beat Cuts

Introduction

This article is not intended as a finished piece. Rather, it intended as a contribution to the debate over the organisation, strategy, and aims of the growing movement against public spending cuts in Scotland and Britain, as well as a report from my experience talking to anti-cuts student activists in London. Any comments, formal or informal, are welcome, as it is through debating our ideas that we advance our understanding, which in turn will help us in our attempt to build movements both against cuts, and for socialism.

This article is also actually two merged into one. The first section deals with my visit to Goldsmiths College London, where I attended an anti-cuts meeting and interviewed some of the students involved. It highlights some of the themes which have wider importance for the anti-cuts movement. Aspects of the Goldsmiths experience have thus contributed to some of the arguments in the second,  ’conclusions’, section of this article. However, I will not offer much commentary on the Goldsmiths interviews themselves. Rather, I will leave it to readers to make their own impressions of the views expressed.

The ’conclusions’ section brings some of the lessons together which are being drawn by more and more people involved in the anti-cuts struggle, in order to generate discussion over the strategy, organisational forms, and ultimate aims of our movement. Socialists have an important contribution to make to these debates and the direction they take. As SSY author James Nesbitt argues of the emergent student anti-cuts movement, “we are actually just at the beginning of what will be a massive and enduring fight. It feels like it has really started now, and it will end with the toppling of this Government…a new generation has entered the fray, with few illusions in mainstream parties or the parliamentary system. Volatile times are ahead and we must be ambitious.”

Part I) A Visit To Goldsmiths

On Thursday 2^nd December, a week before the cap on tuition fees in England was raised to £9,000, I attended an anti-cuts meeting at Goldsmiths College, one of the most organised and militant university campuses in London.  As an arts and humanities university, Goldsmiths is likely to suffer the full effect of the cuts to public spending on education, from cutting teaching budgets and research funding, courses closing, and access being restricted due to higher tuition fees. However, against these moves the students are fighting back, both for themselves and for future generations. By the time I attended their anti-cuts meeting, Goldsmiths students had already occupied a part of their university in protest (they later also occupied their library ), taken part in numerous rallies, teach-ins, and direct-action demonstrations, and were participating in the wider anti cuts struggle against their local council. As a result, Goldsmiths students and their supporting lecturers have been at the forefront of the biggest and most militant student movement in over a generation. I wanted to understand how they were organising, how they viewed their own political agency and the wider student movement against the cuts, and where they felt the anti-cuts movement needed to go. Therefore, after the anti-cuts meeting, I interviewed three of the students who had been taking part; Rachael, “girl 2″ (I missed her name unfortunately) and Manoj Kerai, who was chairing the meeting and is the Goldsmiths SU Activities and Services Officer.

i) The Meeting

The meeting was held by “Goldsmiths Campaign Against Cuts”, a joint initiative between Goldsmiths Students Union (SU) and the University and College (Lecturers) Union (UCU). With around 50+ participants, the meeting was discussing actions and activities in the run up to the vote in the Westminster parliament on the 9th, which at that point was one week away. There was also discussion on what should happen after the 9th, demonstrating that those involved did not see their campaign as only about tuition fees, or as winding down after the tuition fees vote. The meeting was a positive one, with students discussing what activities could be used to build the campaign, such as flashmobs, bursting into lecture theatres, using channels of communication through student societies, and taking over an area of campus to create a visible ‘discursive space’. The group also discussed what actions were in place for the day of the Westminster vote. The calls from the NUS for a lobby of parliament and a candlelite vigil were generally met with derison and disregard, with the argument being put forward that the NUS could be pressured to call for a proper demonstration. My notes from the meeting state that in relation to the candlelite vigil strategy of the NUS, “students feeling more militant + wanting national, mass action”. Indeed, on the day a mass, militant demonstration did take place outside parliament, but as the BBC’s Paul Mason observed his short video report ‘Dubstep Rebellion’, “the official leaders of the NUS could not bring themselves to take part”. The role of the university Senior Management Team (SMT) was also discussed, particularly of their threat to charge the Student Union (SU) with £15-20,000 of damages in relation to their previous student occupation, despite the fact that the SU had not been directly involved. This was seen as an attempt by university management to threaten students taking part in anti-cuts action via pressuring the student union. As this letter from a member of the senior management to the SU president states:

“I know from our discussions that this [£15,000 in damages] will cause difficulties within the Students’ Union, and SMT is not insensitive to this.  In the spirit of good collaborative working SMT has agreed that we will not in fact seek to recover the costs from the Students’ Union budget, on the condition that nothing similar to the occupation occurs. If there is further occupation or disruption we intend to recover the full costs of dealing with it from the Students’ Union.  And, of course, we will additionally seek to recover the costs of the November occupation”.

However, the Goldsmith’s student president opposed outright this approach by management, and students organised another occupation of their library days before the tuition fees vote.

The final issue that the students discussed was whether they should organise another occupation of the campus, and if so, where. It was decided that the decision of when to occupy could be postponed, perhaps until after the Westminster vote, but they should at least decide where to occupy, which could even first be taken over as a ‘discursive space’ before becoming a full occupation. The decision was reached as follows: the four most popular locations were ascertained from the group. Then, one person volunteered to speak for one minute either for or against each locations’ strategic use for an occupation. Once each location had been debated, a vote was taken on each one. For me, this process was important, for it demonstrates the participatory and democratic character of the anti-cuts organisation at Goldsmiths: throughout the meeting, facilitated by the chair, everyone was able to talk in turn while being prevented from talking over one another. Thus the participants collectively not only influenced the discussion but also the direction of the meeting. As such, rather than the meeting being a fustrating and alienating experience with a leadership dictating the line and strategy, participants were protaginists and therefore engaged in the organisational activity. Such participatory democracy is, in my view, the basis of building any successful movement against the cuts, or indeed in building the basis of a new society.

ii) The Interviews

After the meeting, I had a short interview with Rachael and “Girl 2″, and later that day a had a longer interview with Manoj. The questions I asked were related to questions around aims and strategy of the anti-cuts movement, both to gain a feeling of the shape and character of the student anti-cuts movement from their eyes, and also to see what we could learn from their activities and experiences here in Scotland. All italics are my own emphasis.

Your impression of the progress of the Goldsmiths anti-cuts group so far:

Manoj: I think it’s been an uphill struggle, not uphill, but, what’s the word?…It’s been gaining more and more momentum as the campaign goes on, we’re raising more and more awareness, there’s more and more students getting interested, the planning group meetings are getting more and more people coming to it, especially as we had the rally  on Thursday last week in which there were Tony Benn amongst other speakers, who were very inspirational, and I think they gave our students another ‘oomph’, and another urge to go and do something.

Where should the campaign go after the Westminster vote? Is that the end of the campaign?

Manoj: It all depends on what happens on Thursday[the 9th], if it fails on Thursday, we can have a little party and a sigh of relief but make sure that’s not the end, because we could be threatened with it again, so take what we’ve done this time and learn from it and make sure if there is another threat, we’re ready to fight again…but, if it does succeed [the government vote] then we can carry on fighting because I think there tends to be a gap in between passing a policy and it becoming official policy – Me: Yeah, between its actual implementation – Manoj: yeah, so, between the passing and the implementation, there could be so much action that’s done to try and reverse the pass of the policy.

Me: If the government passes that bill, do you think that’s the end of the student anti-cuts campaign? Manoj: No, not at all, I think…it’s just going to entice us to work twice as hard as we have been working now, and I think whilst out students have already been working very, very hard, I think what this is going to do is urge them to work hard even more. Like, as you can see, there was a lot of passion in that room, and I don’t think…I think the passion is so great that I don’t think people will take no for an answer.

Rachael: Personally I just think particularly in Goldsmith’s and working with the SU [student union] in the local community, it’s not just about education for us, it’s about all of the austerity cuts, and, sort of, affronting to our…ideology, so yeah, it’s not going to end if we don’t win this battle, there is still a war to be won, and…we need to remember that though Thursday is really important, that it’s not the end of anything, and to keep up motivation for campaigning, because for me its not just about our education, it’s about all of our public sector, public services being cut, and things like that, so I think it’s important not to stop the campaign, and I don’t think it will stop, because I think that action that happens in Goldsmith’s is about more than just about our fees, and hopefully if we win a war futher on down the line that there’s not to say that there wouldn’t be a change, or a reform, in, hopefully, [unclear- perhaps fees].

G2: I’d just like to add as well that, em, really importantly, there are many sections of society that are going to be affected by these cuts, and they’re not necessarily organised, for example, the unemployed, people on disability, the benefits cuts are going to be terrible, and I think it’s really important that students branch out and help those people who maybe aren’t as organised, don’t have unions, the people who escape political organisation, are exactly the people who need to be supported.

Me: They’re the ones who maybe need the most support.

G2: Yeah

Is the campaign only concerned with cuts to education? What is the view of cuts to other sectors?

Manoj: I think it’s all about solidarity with all the unions who are facing cuts, because if we were to say its important to not cut only ourselves, then we will be dividing ourselves, so I think…like, there’s a saying when we go to protests, “students and workers unite and fight”…That’s something that Goldsmith’s students, at least I know, I know that it’s something that I feel quite strongly about, that we should be working with all the other people facing cuts as well…I think this is why we often work with the UCU and Unison and stuff, it’s because…we believe that all trade unions who are facing cuts should all work together.

Rachael: Goldsmiths went down and supported Lewisham town hall [the local council], they’re facing massive cuts, they’re one of the first councils in England to be voting in the cuts, they’re facing millions and millions of pounds worth of cuts, I mean, just in small scale terms, the NHS employs 150 people in our local area, to run some NHS services, and they’re looking at cutting 80 of those places by Christmas, so they’re going to receive redundancy letters by Christmas. So we went and lobbied against the council who first starting voting in the cuts last week, and broke into the building, and it’s been a bit of local public news…but it was a majority of students there, because the public are maybe not aware enough or are too scared to do something, that they feel they don’t have that kind of power, where we have sort of slightly tasted the power of taking back the streets, and going on these protests, and we can sort of, help and buffer maybe those groups that have less accessibility to campaigning, and so we’ve definitely st[arted]…and we didn’t win that, they voted in the cuts, and it didn’t work necessarily in that small scale, but it’s not going to stop us from campaigning locally.

The relations with the university management…I didn’t know that…they’ve taken quite a hard stance against mobilisation against cuts, by threatening your [student] union with £20,000 of damages [for a non SU organised occupation]?

Rachael: That’s just the very start, they’ve threatened the staff with legal action if they collaborate with students, so they all got threats of solicitors’ letters if they join into any student demonstration or if they seem to be inciting and kind of student demonstration.

Manoj: As far as I’m aware, I’m not sure about what’s been happening in terms of that [threats by management toward lecturer support of students] . Em, there was a statement released by the UCU after the march [I'm uncertain which march this refers to], and there was a statement released by the SMT [university management] after the march, which were slightly different statements… Um, and…we’ve also had staff, as well as students, on the demonstrations but no one from senior management team on the demonstrations, so, whilst as far as I’m aware lecturers haven’t been in trouble for protesting and demonstrating, but they haven’t received the support that is necessary, in my eyes, by the senior management team.

Your assessment of the role of the NUS in the student anti-cuts campaign?

G2: I think everyone is pretty much agreed that the NUS are pretty spineless, so, you know, I think they’ve really proved, proven themselves to be pretty ineffectual, and not backing what the students are doing, which is a great shame. There needs to be a real change there.

Rachael: And on that note we think that…we’ve already proved that we can organise stuff without them, and that whether they’re willing to back us or not it doesn’t really stop anything we’re doing, so, that’s it.

Manoj: I think the NUS took a good lead in organising the big national demonstration [during which the Millbank occupation occured], but after the big national demonstration, I think…the role the NUS played wasn’t beneficial to the movement by condemning students, or not supporting the students, I think, as a ‘union of students’, they should have supported all the students…and I think it’s a shame that the NUS hasn’t been involved in the latter protests that have occurred, and they were called upon by, not the NUS, but…other people, and I think these protests could have been stronger had the NUS played a part in it; so I think whilst the NUS was beneficial in helping us start this movement, I don’t think they’ve done anything to help after, since, the 10^th of November, I don’t think they’ve done much to support the student’s movement after. That’s my personal opinion, I know there’s differences within opinions between different people, but, I think, personally, yes they did something good by organising the big national demo, they started, or they helped start something, but that’s all they did: they haven’t helped or facilitated or aided anything that’s happened after, so, I think, whilst they did help, I think everything that’s happened, the place where we are now, has practically been done by student’s themselves, rather than the NUS, because they haven’t really [done anything].

What kind of direction would the anti-cuts movement, or the social movement that’s being generated at the moment, will need to take, to win, or to defeat cuts…what do you think it will take to win?

Manoj: I think more demonstrations in a way, and more lobbying of MP’s. More direct action, rather than, yeah, direct action is what we’ll need. For example, the protest that happened on Tuesday, just the one that was gone [Tuesday 30^th Nov?], it was amazing, it was the best protest I’ve been to so far I think, and all people did was walk around London, just running, stopping, and it practically brought London to a standstill – Me: just sit downs in streets and things? – Manoj: not sit downs, we carried on walking, but the amount of disruption it caused – there was traffic everywhere that day -  it wasn’t caused by the snow, it was caused by the students, which was even better, cause, snow didn’t bring London to a standstill, the students did!

Me: More powerful than mother nature!

Yeah, so I think that was a brilliant one, and I think more things like this that will cause as much disruption to the way the government runs is the key to winning the battle to tuition fees and in general against all cuts, because, I think, I think, people could do peaceful protesting, but…they won’t listen, they’ll be like “yeah, they’re peacefully protesting” [i.e. in a tone of disregard], I think the only way they will listen is by more direct action that would cause disturbances to them, such as what we did on Tuesday blocking up all the traffic and carrying on walking.

Why do you think opposing the cuts is important, and winning, as well, for society?

Manoj: For many reasons, firstly, um, like, yeah, there are loads of students who do say, it won’t affect me, but, it’s in general it’s all about, I’m someone who’s always campaigned for rights for others, but when I think education is a right for people, rather than a privilege for people who can afford to pay it: I think, what this will do, increasing the tuition fees will mean that it will turn into an elitist system where only the rich can afford to do arts and humanities, go to Oxford and Cambridge or the “elite universities”, and the poor will have to make do with not so, so just replicating the class divide between people. And on top of that, it would mean that people who have the ability to go to university but can’t afford it can’t go to university, whereas the people who many not have ability to go, but can afford it, are the ones who are going, rather than the people who should go. And it’s fighting for the rights of the future generations to be able to go to university: cause this will stop loads of people from being able to look forward to going to university, it means that people won’t be able do arts and humanities courses, so…it’s just as much fighting for the rights of my children and grandchildren, as well as my younger siblings, and all the other people who have a right to go to university.

On Solidarity

Manoj: I think it was really nice that even during the [mass national demonstration] demo that students from Scottish universities came, even though Scottish universities get free education, and they came to show solidarity, which was great. I can say certainly in Scotland, we recognise that our anti-cuts movement is closely linked with the rest of the UK, because if fees go up and up in English universities, the pressure on the Scottish funding system, will be, you know, it will lend a hand to those who want to introduce a fees system in Scotland, so we…do all we can, I think, to support you. Em, well it’s not even just supporting you, is for ourselves as well of course!

Me:

Me to Manoj: Well, thank you very much for your time, for the interview, and the best of luck down in London with your struggle.

Manoj: Oh, thank you!

Me: And we’ll do our best in Edinburgh, and in Scotland!

Manoj Yes! I hope it goes well from Scotland as well!