The Socialist 19 April 2007

Kick big business out of the NHS

Nurses' fury at cuts and attacks on jobs

NHS London - delivering private health

Build for national action against fees

Election manifesto 2007

Leicester: A principled stand against opportunists

Young socialist standing for Save Huddersfield NHS

Wales manifesto launch

Save our NHS campaign fields five candidates in South Lakes

Nursery cuts campaign launch

Making a difference in Lincoln

Vote Socialist Alternative on 3 May

RMT victory: Union militancy pays

Wanted - a new mass party for workers

Campaign for a New Workers' Party Conference

Tube workers win big victory over Metronet

Campaigning for a £26,000 minimum wage

Young trade unionists reject New Labour

Greenwich UNISON steps up fight against pay cuts

Venezuela: Will the trade unions give up their independence?

Bush's man at the World Bank in corruption scandal

Bosses' Pension

Blockading Britain's warhead factory

Fighting for the right to walk in the countryside

Cuts reduce advice for the people who most need help

Bank that only serves the rich

Previous issues, etc

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Build for national action against fees

Join the Campaign to Defeat Fees 27 April day of action

Fight for a national demonstration

Cardiff Socialist Students campaign, photo Dave Reid

Students live in a world of soaring debt, unaffordable or condemned housing, low-paid jobs with poor quality working conditions, course cuts and department closures. With vice-chancellors saying they want course fees to increase to £10,000 a year, the need for a coordinated national fight-back is more and more evident.

Suzanne Beishon, Brighton University Socialist Students

We need to show the scale of opposition to fees by building national action that leads to a mass campaign. The Campaign to Defeat Fees (CDF), launched by Socialist Students, has been organising and campaigning against fees at campuses and colleges across the country, showing how a mass campaign could be built.

We are organising for a national day of action on Friday 27 April to campaign for the NUS to call a national demonstration against all fees in the first term of next year.

We want a national weekday demonstration in London called under the slogans "no to all fees, cuts, closures and privatisation". This could be publicised during and after freshers' fairs and when FE colleges start the new term. This is what the NUS should be doing, so why is the leadership not acting?

The failure of the NUS leadership to fight for students' rights was shown at the NUS annual conference in March. The leadership told us that "demonstrations will not aid our cause".

Instead of a campaigning strategy based on mass action involving students uniting with workers, NUS proposed lobbying Parliament and compiling facts to give to the decision makers.

Southampton Socialist Students campaigning

However, politely asking Parliament to stop making attacks on education and other parts of the public sector is a tactic doomed to failure, just as it failed when tuition fees and then top-up fees were introduced.

But we will not wait for the NUS leadership to act! Building for the second CDF day of action on 27 April has already begun in many universities. Action will include a protest outside Exeter College, stunts and stalls in Bournemouth and Bristol universities, and possibly a debate with Bristol University's management.

The feeble New Labour excuse that they cannot afford to scrap fees and fund free education is hypocrisy if they can commit £76 billion to the renewal of nuclear weapons, while continuing to fund the occupation of Iraq.

Socialist Students recognise that the only way to defeat fees for good is to fight for publicly-run free education and a system that does not strive to profit from public services but is run for the benefit of society. This is why we actively support socialist candidates standing against big business parties in the elections on 3 May.

In this issue

Kick big business out of the NHS