UK Student movement

On 1 April student organisers from five London universities met to reflect on lessons and steps forwards for fee strike action. Over 200 students remain on fee strike across Goldsmiths and SOAS, whilst UAL (University of the Arts, London) and LSE (London School of Economics) students are building support among international and postgraduate students, who remain the only groups capable of withholding fees. The strike at RCA (Royal College of Art) is somewhat diminished due to management bullying and threats of border controls against visa-dependent students, but some students are still on...

Republished from our school workers' blog Class Struggle On Wednesday 31 March, their last day of term, almost a thousand students at Pimlico Academy, the flagship school run by Future Academies, sat down in the playground and refused to go to lessons. The students were protesting a racist school uniform policy, which instructed students with afro hairstyles to cut their hair and students wearing hijabs to cover all of their hair; miserly and “humiliating” free school meal provision; the failure to support students that have been sexually assaulted at school; a whitewashed history curriculum...

Workers Liberty supporters remain active organising and building a number of struggles across UK universities, promoting a socialist programme for free education and a democratic campus, and building solidarity with staff campaigns. The recently reported fee strikes at SOAS and Goldsmiths in London (Solidarity 583) continue strong, and both campaigns have recently held “superforum events” to build their struggles with other university campaigns. Connecting with rent strikes and campus union campaigns has been prioritised in both fee strikes, and making space to build understanding between...

Talk of fee strikes is starting to spread through the UK student movement. There are fee strikes ongoing at SOAS University of London and Royal College of Art (RCA); they started in January primarily due to students feeling they have not received “value for money”. Fee strikes are particularly feasible at those universities because of the high proportion of international and postgraduate students, who pay fees from their own accounts, and can therefore withhold them. Home undergraduates’ fees are paid directly by UK student finance, and so they cannot “fee-strike”. The ongoing strikes remain...

Students at SOAS [a university in London centred on the study of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East] are refusing to pay fees as leverage to win their demands on the university management. Close to 1000 students (out of around only 5000 “campus” students, i.e. students who would be on campus in usual conditions, as distinct from those online-only anyway) signed a petition supporting the call for a bailout, pledging solidarity with staff against insecure contracts and “restructuring”, and further demanding that the university does not comply with the government’s Prevent and Hostile...

As rent strikes continue around the UK, other fronts of struggle in higher education are opening up. Leicester and Liverpool Universities have recently announced redundancies of academic staff. A strike planned for 8 February at Brighton University over cuts in the IT services was called off after management made some concessions but the fight continues. Action Short of Strike by UCU members at Goldsmiths continues with no sight of management backing down on long-threatened redundancies, despite no drop in student numbers. Many university managements are using the pandemic as an opportunity to...

Workers' Liberty workplace activists in Higher Education produce industrial bulletins - follow the below link to download the January/February 2021 edition.

There are now around 70 student rent strike and tenants’ groups at universities across the UK and the organisation and politics of the movement is taking a clearer shape. At the same time some University and private landlords are offering inadequate rent rebates, though inadequate ones. The National Union of Students held a high profile rally on Monday 25 January, under the banner Students Deserve Better, with UCU General Secretary Jo Grady, Owen Jones and rent strikers speaking. The grassroots organising is being co-ordinated by local groups, a new committee of rent strike groups and local...