Liverpool
Joe Woolfall, Liverpool Socialist Students
Liverpool Socialist Students organised a demo, alongside other Socialist Students groups nationally on over 20 university campuses, against the new Labour government’s Budget. We knew it would be a continuation of attacks on workers and students, like those seen under the Tories.
Funding Not Fees was set up in anticipation of a potential tuition fee hike in the budget. In the event, the government waited a few days to try to hide the announcement once the news had moved on.
Our demo was attended by around 25 people – members of the public stopped to hear brilliant speeches from the Socialist Party and Socialist Students members. Among our speakers were current and former election candidates. Those who spoke described an education system in crisis, students skipping meals, and a general outline of the attacks against the working class in the Budget.
We contacted other student societies, inviting them to unite with us to fight for free, fully funded education. In the future, we will again reach out to other organisations and hope to arrange a united fightback against Labour’s cuts and fee rises.
Our demonstration was followed by a public meeting on what the Budget means for students. Liverpool Socialist Students has had a very successful year so far and will be building on our hard work in the coming weeks.
Aberystwyth
Cas Middlemas, Aberystwyth Socialist Students
Socialist Students organised a Budget Day protest following a week of campaigning, including campaign stalls in the rain, a public meeting and a placard-making social.
We were treated to good weather on the day itself, but unfortunately also treated to complete silence by the Labour government in the Budget, which said nothing on the crisis in higher education. It seems the only thing Rachel Reeves has in common with students is a tendency to procrastinate!
In the end she submitted her assignment late, announcing an increase in fees five days later.
Despite our relatively small numbers, one protester said they felt “we made our voices heard”. After gathering outside the students’ union, we marched through the campus to the vice-chancellor’s (VC) office. The Aberystwyth VC saw his salary go from £236,000 to £245,000 this year, in the same year that 200 jobs were cut at the university and the postgraduate teaching qualification course was closed. We pointed out the hypocrisy of this on our protest.
I am incredibly proud of the campaigning Aberystwyth Socialist Students has done for Funding Not Fees so far. But this is just the beginning as the crisis in higher education has not gone away.
The budget and subsequent fees rise have only kicked the can down the road, and given uni bosses a green light to make even more cuts and closures. Socialist Students will continue to fight for funding, not fees!
Queen Mary, London
Mihaela Ivanova, Queen Mary Socialist Students
At Queen Mary University (QMUL), we handed out over 500 leaflets throughout the week leading up to Budget Day. We held a protest in the Library Square, where a Socialist Students member spoke. Although many students were not even aware of the possibility of a tuition fee increase, they supported our day of action and our open letter to Jeremy Corbyn and the seven suspended Labour MPs to assist our campaign.
Young people have had to fight tooth and nail to be heard. Last term, courageous students organised peaceful encampments against complicity in Israeli state terror where QMUL spent over £100k taking its own students to court!
No one represents the student voice on campus. We believe that students and staff should have democratic control of our resources, setting up democratic student committees alongside campus trade unions to oversee and organise our education to benefit all. We demand the replacement of maintenance loans for grants instead, the cancellation of student debt and the scrapping of tuition fees.
In the next year, 65% of universities across the UK will face financial difficulty. At QMUL we can afford to have a brand new state of the art business management building, but not enough to give our teachers and staff fair pay and secure employment rights.
This year alone, 60 staff members at QMUL have left via a voluntary severance scheme. Despite raking in millions, universities refuse to protect our education. This is why we must fight for free and fully funded education.
Manchester
Robbie Davidson, Manchester Socialist Students
With our newly built societies at the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan we were ready to take the ideas discussed in our meetings so far onto the streets, and to make a statement against the squeeze on our cost of living.
We stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Unite Community and Pensioners’ Association members, supporting their day of action against the cuts to Winter Fuel Allowances, projected to kill 3,000 pensioners this Christmas.
Students, workers and retired people united against all forms of austerity, and called for meaningful socialist change to put an end to it. This represented an important moment of solidarity, and we will kick on from here to play our part in ending tuition fees and the marketisation of our universities.
We also took the Funding Not Fees campaign to the Manchester Metropolitan Students’ Union (SU). Although they agreed to take our programme into review, they did not outright support our motion.
We will continue to fight for the SU to be a body that fights for students rather than just a depoliticised friendly face, allowing us to vent our frustrations with the failing system of marketised universities.
Cardiff
Aris Prevost, Cardiff Socialist Students
We protested outside the front of the Cardiff Students’ Union, arguing for funding, not fees. This call holds especially in Cardiff, with warning signs from the university trade unions and the university itself about the ‘tough choices’, aka cuts, that are coming.
In the time we were protesting, we had students approach us and ask about tuition fees rises. Confusion quickly turned to shock and anger with the information that a tuition fees increase was likely to be announced.
This news will anger students and so the Labour government kept it from us in the Budget, only to break the news five days later.
There was no new money for universities in the Budget. So even with the fees rise, uni bosses will make cuts. Both staff members and students are going to be punished for the lack of action by the government.
With this Budget laid out in front of us, it’s clear that now more then ever we need a radical upheaval of the higher education sector, with free tuition fees, free maintenance grants and a real living wage for all university workers. Socialist Students will continue to fight for a more fair and just university system.
