The NUS pro-Labour leadership have lost all credibility and are powerless in the face of the revolting student masses. But can the left fill the vacuum and help channel the masses of students into the wider political struggle?
As the student movement has developed over the past month, the one thing that has become increasingly apparent is that the National Union of Students (NUS) leadership has, at best, had no role in its development and at worst been playing an active role to undermine it.
Having called the first national demo back on November 10th in response to grass roots pressure, they were completely overwhelmed and unprepared for the 50,000 that took to the streets. Since then they have failed to mobilise for anything, actively distanced themselves from their own members actions whilst desperately still trying to look relevant and in control to the media. The only tactics they have mentioned are the need for graduate tax and to deselect Liberal Democrats who vote for tuition fees, both have which have gone almost completely ignored by the student movement. The only action they have called or even supported since the original one was there own “glow stick vigil”, which attracted less than 200 people (and cost them a £10,000s apparently). Already, you can imagine the Government quaking in its boots.
NUS Aaron Porter's position seems to shift on an almost daily basis as on the one hand he tries to act as the “voice of reason” and head of the student movement, whilst occasionally being forced to back track in the face of the reality of events. So far, all he has done is dither and .He condemns occupations and then offers support to them, then withdraws the support. He condemns the student demonstrations, whilst trade unions line up to support them. Whilst everyone criticises the police violence, Aaron is too busy blaming the students for the violence and how they should be banned from protests.
After all this, not to mention the fact that the fact they've had nothing to do with the 100,000+ students out protesting, is it any wonder that instead of Mr Porter the media is increasingly going to figures like Clare Solomn, President of ULU, leftwinger and leading student activist and other representatives from the newly emerged student campaign groups (see below).
However, though they may have been sidelined for now, the student movement still lacks a cohesive leadership that can replace it. The main groups that have emerged are the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) and the Education Activist Network (run by the AWL and SWP youth sections respectively) who have links amongst the more militant universities and Youth Fight for Jobs/Socialist Students (Socialist Party youth) which has more focus on school and college students.These campaigns though are simply not big enough to form an effective leadership at this stage.
NCAFC is mainly a facebook group, but can put a message or call out rapidly and has played a role in mobilising for the national demos. EDA (as an SWP front) has more activists in the universities and so has more of a base on the ground to build for events and so has been more involved in building occupations and local events. Youth fight for Jobs has been targeting schools and colleges and has a had success in helping to coordinate local walkouts and demonstrations. All three have been working together within the General Assemblies that have been appearing, but no organisation has begun to occur past these mass meetings. Though they are quite big, they generally represent lefty student activists rather than the new layer who have been politicised. To keep pushing these, alongside repeated calls for more national demos, will have decreasing returns in the long run. There needs to be a consolidation of the movement, to build networks on the ground and prepare for the New Year.
What will be critical is the potential NUT and UCU (teachers and lecturers unions) coordinated strike action over pensions in the New Year, potentially with the PCS, its vital that we begin making the links between the students and unions. We (by which I mean the Trade Unions and activists) need to be helping students organise in their schools and colleges, to be holding meetings and electing reps who can attend and link up with anti-cuts groups and speak at trade councils. We need students to be on picket lines and on anti-cuts demos, we need them talking about benefit cuts and unemployment, we need to draw them into the bigger battles that we are facing. To do this, we need local student committees with activists from every school and college, that can link up to a bigger student leadership.
If we don't do this in the long term, we run the risk of the students becoming demoralised, the left becoming isolated in its occupations and the likes of Aaron Porter stepping back in to reassert his ruinous tactics
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