Socialist Party attacked in attempt to undermine student fightback


Not only has the National Union of Students’ leadership refused to support, on spurious grounds, the 19 November student demonstration taking place in London, but smears have been directed at the record of the Socialist Party by some NUS officers and from other quarters. This Socialist Party statement sets the record straight regarding the allegations and defamatory statements that have been made.

On 16 September, the NUS NEC voted by a clear margin to formally endorse a student demonstration calling for free education, organised to take place on 19 November. Seven weeks later, NUS president Toni Pearce has released a statement saying that ‘NUS is not in a position to support this demonstration’.

This is in direct contravention of the democratic decision taken by the NEC and represents an attempt by the right-wing leadership to ‘wriggle out’ of taking (or even supporting) any serious action to defend education against austerity.

This is an outrageous dereliction of duty on the part of the leadership of NUS. In a general election year, and following five years of brutal assault on the education system, to fail to organise or even support a national demonstration on the question of cuts and fees is disgraceful.

It is vital that this demonstration is as successful as possible. If properly built and mobilised for, with the full weight of NUS behind it, it could act as a springboard to launching the serious, mass campaign needed to defend education, both before and after the next election.

Socialist Students has urged all anti-austerity students to continue to build the 19 November demonstration and fight to make it as successful and vibrant as possible. Students must continue to put pressure on NUS leaders to organise a serious fight to defend education.

Toni Pearce, herself a right-wing Labour Party member, has a record of arguing against organising demonstrations and demanding free education. At last year’s conference she unsuccessfully put the case for lobbying government to introduce a ‘graduate tax’ as opposed to fully funded, free education.

She also argued and voted against NUS organising its own national demonstration. On this, her position was carried by a narrow margin with the votes of right-wing NEC members swinging the count in favour of inaction.

Alongside a number of other New Labour affiliated full-time officers and NEC members in NUS, she has consistently attempted to block a serious battle to defend education from being waged.

These are the real, political reasons behind this attempt to undermine the 19 November demonstration.

Red herrings

However, the reason stated for this disregarding of the democratic structures of NUS is the issue of safety, accessibility and risk for students attending demonstrations.

It should be noted that the organisers have a safe and accessible route planned and will have stewarding in place. The route plan has now also been formally agreed by the police. Should genuine concerns about safety on the demonstration be raised, the attitude of NUS should not be to ‘pull support’ for the protest but to provide its resources and expertise to assist the resolution of any such problems.

Some NUS officers have also raised the presence of left wing organisations – including the Socialist Party – on protests or in meetings as a reason for pulling support. This is outrageously being presented as concern over the issue of violence against women and sexism within our movement.

Some – for example, Fran Cowling, the NUS LGBT officer – have even suggested that a ‘no platform’ policy should be adopted towards the Socialist Party, SWP and potentially other left-wing groups.

They have demanded, for example, that no materials (placards, newspapers, leaflets) are distributed by the Socialist Party before, during or after the demonstration. Further, that Socialist Party members should only be able to attend the demonstration as individuals and not representing their organisation.

These demands are effectively calls for the political censorship of the Socialist Party within the student movement and are reminiscent of Stalinism. They are a cynical and reactionary attempt to witch-hunt socialists.

The right-wing within NUS, with the collusion of some so-called ‘lefts’, are trying to whip up this campaign against members of left-wing organisations as part of an attempt to weaken any serious challenge to their leadership and avoid organising a serious fight-back among students.

AWL’s role

As the Socialist Party has warned previously, much of the right wing, Labour-supporting NUS leadership have been handed a weapon to use against the left by the utterly dishonest approach of some so-called socialist groups.

The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), in particular, has attempted to use smear and slander to attack the Socialist Party and has played a significant role in whipping up this witch-hunt. It, along with some others, has chosen to align with the right-wing leadership, and bears a large amount of responsibility for NUS refusing to back the demonstration.

The price for the AWL’s crude sectarianism is being paid by the student movement as a whole.

The National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC), a student anti-cuts group heavily influenced by the AWL, has also produced a statement on its website arguing that Socialist Party and SWP members should be ‘asked to leave’ demonstrations or meetings – giving an argument to some NUS officers for not supporting the demonstration.

Socialist Party’s record

Clearly, any concerns about the safety of women and sexism within our movement should be treated with the upmost seriousness.

The Socialist Party and Socialist Students have a proud history of fighting women’s oppression and campaigning against violence against women.

For example, The Socialist Party launched the Campaign Against Domestic Violence (CADV) in the early 1990s, which fought to establish the principle that domestic violence should be considered a trade union and workplace issue.

This campaign was a crucial part of ensuring that trade unions have a clear policy and take action on combatting domestic violence and supporting its victims both inside and outside the workplace.

In higher education, Socialist Students recently launched ‘rape is no joke’, aimed at exposing some of the myths perpetuated about rape within popular culture, and campaigning against misogyny in comedy.

As domestic violence services have been cut by more than a third under the present government (with many of these cuts being passed on by Labour run councils) the Socialist Party and Socialist Students members have been to the fore in the campaigning to protect them.

This proud record can be contrasted with that of austerity-promoting New Labour, which has the support of many of NUS’s full time officers (including the president).

In fact many Blairite members of Labour Students are supporting and coordinating this attempt to ‘no platform’ parts of the left, and cast entirely unfounded slurs against the Socialist Party.

When in government, New Labour went to war in Iraq resulting, as in many wars, in the rape, and of course death, of tens of thousands of women.

Labour councils around the country have carried out vicious cuts in domestic violence and rape crisis services.

In Rotherham, New Labour councillors are alleged, alongside the police, to have ‘turned a blind eye’ to more than 1,400 cases of rape and child abuse.

Where is the condemnation or demand to ‘no platform’ representatives of New Labour from NUS full-time officers?

A comparison can be drawn between this attempt to witch-hunt the Socialist Party in the student movement and the false accusations of racism levelled at four Socialist Party members by the right-wing UNISON bureaucracy.

After a five year struggle and huge campaign by rank and file UNISON members, the union’s leadership was defeated on this question, despite having spent over £100,000 of members’ money on a lengthy legal battle.

The Socialist Party will be equally determined in fighting any similar attacks on us in the student field.

‘No platform’: use and misuse

The tactics of using ‘no-platform’ policies and blocking attempts to organise have traditionally been applied to fascist and neo-fascist organisations within the student and trade union movements.

Socialist Students believes that it is correct to argue that fascist organisations should not be given the chance to organise within student unions or our movement, as they aim to destroy all elements for democracy that exist under capitalism (including the right to vote, join a trade union, strike, protest and so on).

In recent years, some attempts have been made within the student movement to apply this tactic to non-fascists. This has generally been on the grounds that particular individuals or organisations put forward sexist or racist ideas.

In particular ‘no-platform’ has been used recently against the left, including George Galloway and the SWP.

Now, there is an attempt use this strategy against members of Socialist Party on the basis of slanderous attacks made by our political opponents.

But wouldn’t any serious suggestion of ‘no-platforming’ sexist organisations begin with the Tories, Lib-Dems and Labour – all organisations which have cut rape or domestic violence services, dealt with internal accusations of abuse and harassment badly (or not at all), carried out austerity policies which hit women hardest and propagated sexist attitudes such as ideal ‘family values’?

Such an approach would be as impractical as it would be ineffective in dealing with sexism, racism or any other form of oppression. Sexist and racist ideas, endemic as they are within capitalist society, need to be smashed through political struggle.

This means challenging such attitudes, even if they come from the left. But it is reasoned argument, as well as the winning of mass support for opposition to discrimination, which is the most effective weapon for defeating them, certainly not bans or ‘no-platform’.

Any serious struggle against oppression will need to ultimately take on both brutal austerity and the capitalist system itself, built as it is on exploitation, violence and oppression.

The NUS leadership’s strategy of sitting tight and hoping for a Labour government come 2015 will not stop the austerity onslaught students are experiencing, nor will it do anything to make women safer.

We urge them to reverse this decision and instead mobilise a maximum turnout for the demonstration and organise a serious fightback beyond it.