Daniel Lemberger-Cooper is a founder-member of the Royal Holloway Anti-Cuts Alliance. He spoke to Solidarity about their campaign.
How did Royal Holloway Anti-Cuts Alliance begin?
A handful of students in early June of this year felt it important to organise around the issues of impending public sector and tertiary education cuts, and the possibility(now very real) of tuition fee’ rises. We spoke to different societies and clubs across the campus, bringing people together to coordinate and organise. We held our first meeting, of about 25 students, in early September. We wrote a charter, discussed key dates, actions into the future and how we wanted to organise the alliance.
Who's involved, what has it done so far? What are your future plans?
The Royal Holloway Anti cuts alliance is a collective of students, workers, the local community and academics organising to oppose and resist the cuts in education and across the public(and private, lets not divide !) sector. We have held a plethora of open meetings, protests, film nights, public debates, ‘educationals’, a funeral for education, and the unprecedented occupation, to raise awareness about the cuts, how they can be fought, and importantly, to demonstrate that they aren’t a necessity or wholly inevitable. We would like to hold a music/satire/comedy night very soon!
We held a historic occupation of the Founders building for a full 2 days on the 23rd November. It was inspiring to have organised and been a part of. This was part of a wave of sit-ins, walk outs, protests across the country against the government’s austerity measures and increase in tuition fees. We had large numbers stay over the two days; we ran a ‘teach-in’, academics presenting ideas/papers, exchanging ideas, spoken-word, poetry, live music. We had a media team, and wrote many articles. The local community and trade unionists offered their support and spoke. We raised the issues at a local level, putting pressure on the university management. As a result, we received a response to our demands and have continued actions locally.
A key objective is for frequent and mass actions across the university. Royal Holloway has a long history of political inertia, apathy and students that command pedestrian values. This is certainly changing. The local GMB and UCU members have regularly attended meetings and been active within the alliance. This applies to a broadly conservative Surrey. We are holding meetings in every school, sixth form and college, in order to encourage the establishment of Anti-cuts groups and agitation – inculcating a culture across the region. This will hopefully lead to regular student assemblies, opening spaces and forums for perpetual discussion amongst the movement. Such assemblies will become of greater importance as the struggle intensifies.
Also, we have affiliated and been working closely with ‘Save our Services in Surrey’, an active group of trade unionists (NUT, Unison, GMB and 8 others at a national level) and workers from across the area. We have made key links and built relationships with fire fighters, mental health workers, Connexions workers etc. We have been at picket lines, lobbied the council and attended local/regional meetings. We understand, and seek to push, the importance of workers and students linking up. Unity is strength, non?
We have organised a ‘Day school’ for late January in which students, workers, pensioners are invited to debate, discover, learn, teach and impart ideas; centrally about the resistance to the cuts. We feel it important to conceptualise the government’s attacks on public services (concept/context) ; why they are happening – to arm young people/workers with ideas. We are perhaps defending a system we disagree with, thus it’s of the upmost importance to reflect upon the contemporary University (academics, students will present papers/presentations) and our socio-economic situation.
What problems have you encountered?
Worryingly, the obfuscation and lack of action from the Students’ Union around the issue of the cuts has been a central concern. Only recently, there has been hysteria and a concerted effort to discredit the Alliance as ‘phalanx of militants running down the street’ – as violent, illegal. This has all been a complete fabrication. But, as we have seen with the NUS nationally, it is students that lead, and the NUS that follows. We believe it an obligation of the local SU to actively involve themselves in the cuts campaign. There has been a transformation of higher education in the last forty years, this is seen through our SU; transmutation of student into consumer. Importantly, part of the wider struggle will be to transform students’ unions into combative bodies.
Do you have links with other student anti-cuts campaigns? What do you think of the NCAFC and EAN?
It is important, as a local anti cuts group, to link up with national groups, such as the NCAFC and EAN, which we have certainly done. A coherent and serious national agenda, with a programme cannot be underestimated. We have received much valued support in myriad ways from the NCAFC; materials, advice, guidance on tactics, spreading of news of local activities across the country. Unity across national campaigns is an imperative as we are facing savage attacks across public services. We have attended several EAN meetings, broadly impressed by the rhetoric and commitment yet the lack of unity, democracy and transparency, in which false divisions have been erected, particularly at the national ‘meeting’, has greatly perturbed those newly politicised.
If anything, we would like to become more involved in the national organisation!
