The Socialist 15 March 2007

£billions for rich... Pennies for us!

Minimum wage insult

UNISON Health group votes for summer demo

Hewitt's 'day of exchange'

Fighting the cuts in Camden

Lambeth council attacks services for vulnerable people

Barking BNP don't oppose council cuts

Lewisham council's outrageous attack

Kurdish asylum seekers living in fear

Northern Ireland Assembly elections: Another sectarian headcount...

We Won't Pay Campaign conference success

Solidarity builds party profile ahead of elections

February revolution 1917 - what lessons for today?

US continues threats over Iran's nuclear ambitions

Iraq war: Convicted Bush official is 'fall guy' over WMD scandal

Celebrating International Women's Day

Tenants vote no to council housing sell-off

Market-driven 'social housing' threatens tenants

Will government plans stop climate change?

Build the campaign to defeat fees

International Socialist Resistance (ISR) and Socialist Students conference

Trade Unions and the Labour Party: CWU branch asks some awkward questions

Campaign for a New Workers' Party conference

Reinstate Dave Condliffe now

UNISON leaders lead members into dead end

SOUTHAMPTON council strike

PCS prepares for more struggles

Right wins lecturers' union leadership - on a 14% turnout

Previous issues, etc

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Build the campaign to defeat fees

LONDON SOCIALIST Students members lobbied the National Union of Students (NUS) headquarters on 9 March to hand over the Campaign to Defeat Fees (CDF) declaration to NUS president Gemma Tumelty and other NEC members.

Matt Dobson

The NUS with its large resources and membership is capable of getting thousands of students involved in fighting fees. They have supported the CDF but as yet have done nothing. We wanted to spell out clearly what we want them to do. The lobby turned into a heated discussion around how to build a campaign to defeat New Labour's attacks on education.

Although the NUS leadership stressed that they agreed that we need to build a campaign involving as many students as possible against fees, it was clear from the discussion that they believed nothing more could be done than what is already being done to fight fees.

The Campaign to Defeat Fees declaration outlines the steps that need to be taken to begin to build a mass campaign involving tens of thousands of students linking up with workers in mass action to force the government to abandon fees.

In the discussion we explained that the Campaign to Defeat Fees had got an enthusiastic response from students. This was shown with the successful CDF day of action on 22 February which involved hundreds of students in over 50 universities and colleges.

They argued that the most effective way of fighting fees was to win influence in the "corridors of power" and on the "cheese and wine circuit" by lobbying MPs and government ministers. They argued that it was correct for the 'admission impossible' campaign to focus on keeping the cap on top-up fees and building up pressure on "decision makers" when fees are reviewed in 2009 rather than fighting for the scrapping of all fees and for free education as "there was no point in building a campaign around issues that are not coming up as legislation."

Gemma and the other NEC members present refused to commit to any of the declaration proposals or to backing the CDF motion at NUS conference. This shows the need to continue building the Campaign to Defeat Fees on campuses and at the coming NUS conference and to fight for NUS to be a democratic campaigning union.

There will be another opportunity to debate with the NUS leadership in the 'How to fight fees' debate at the ISR and Socialist Students conference as Wes Streeting, NUS's vice president (education), will be there.

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£billions for rich... Pennies for us!