20.11.1997

Students resist

Growing resentment over the introduction of tuition fees and the abolition of student grants turns to action on Wednesday with the national demonstration in London.

This is a step in the right direction. So far the strategy of the National Union of Students leadership has been to dissipate rather than build resistance. It organised token regional demonstrations on November 1 and is campaigning only against tuition fees, effectively accepting the replacement of grants with loans.

The government’s draconian proposals are part and parcel of the ongoing ruling class offensive to demolish the post-war welfare state consensus. Many students recognise the introduction of fees as a continuation of the public sector cuts imitiated by Thatcher.

However, the government’s policy is hardly a ‘sellout’ by Blair and Blunkett. Labour had already committed itself before the election to acceptance of the Dearing Enquiry which recommended tuition fees. As part of its ‘compassion with a hard edge’, the new government went further in proposing the complete abolition of grants, replacing them with a burdensome loans system.

Far from being a vehicle for rounded human development and the pursuit of truth, education in capitalist society is increasingly a commodity, subordinate to business interests. Although this latest attack on education has seen a decrease in university applications, the aim of the government’s education policy is to increase the number of students and thus the number of technically trained workers. Colleges and universities are increasingly becoming factories churning out human fodder for the labour market.

In building a fightback, demonstrations are useful. Occupations and joint committees with lecturers and campus workers are also needed, but are not in themselves the answer. Unless the fight for free education is linked with the struggle for an independent political alternative, the campaign could end up as a Grand Old Duke of York affair. Demonstration after demonstration without a clear political direction will lead to demoralisation and demobilisation.

Leadership is crucial, but the NUS is at present a training ground for aspiring New Labour parliamentarians and bourgeois careerists. Former Conservative chancellor Kenneth Clarke highlighted this in a recent interview in Tribune. Referring to his own rejection of fees while in government, he said: “The funny thing is, I sit here sounding more leftwing than the president of the National Union of Students.”

The SWP and its Socialist Worker Student Societies are the most visible force active on campuses across the country. Full of militant rhetoric, the SWP nevertheless ends up politically backing Labour. Having told us to vote for him on May 1 the SWP now says it does not like the results.

In the SWP’s report of its recent national conference, SWSS organiser Jacqui Freeman is quoted as saying: “We need to drive home the message - tell Labour, no more broken promises” (Socialist Worker November 15). This creates the idea that the Labour Party, and not independent working class activity, is the vehicle for progressive change in society.

Such tailing of reformism is a recipe for disaster. Revolution and reform do not travel the same road at different speeds: they are processes heading in fundamentally different directions.

Campaigns such as the essentially defensive fight for free education must be linked with a broader struggle to build a real working class political alternative

Martin Blum