At their final meeting of the term, Bradford Student Solidarity (BSS, the anti-cuts campaign at Bradford university) agreed to host an all-Yorkshire Student Assembly on Sunday 6 February.
Ian Pattison, Leeds City and Bradford Socialist Party
BSS are also keen to send delegates to the National Student Assembly on Sunday 30 January. The National Student Assembly will be important for setting up democratic structures in the student movement and to help draw up a national strategy to beat the cuts.
BSS want the same in the region, so the different anti-cuts campaigns across Yorkshire can coordinate action.
The all-Yorkshire Student Assembly will include speakers from the student occupations and the trade union movement, open discussion, and workshops to share ideas and experience.
BSS will contact the different student anti-cuts campaigns across Yorkshire to ensure the biggest and widest turnout possible.
But BSS also want to build beyond students. Students can’t throw a protective cordon around education, or beat the cuts in isolation.
If we want to break the Con-Dem coalition and stop their austerity juggernaut in its tracks, we need the might of the working class, who, when organised in fighting trade unions, taking collective action and withdrawing their labour can bring this hated government to its knees.
BSS already has the support of the University of Bradford Union (UBU) and Bradford UCU.
BSS will seek to build formal links with Bradford People’s Coalition Against the Cuts and the trade unions in the area.
BSS also agreed to support and build for the national march to the TUC rally on youth unemployment in Manchester on 29 January.
The next BSS meeting will be Wednesday 26 January.
