Student mobilisations this winter ?

yeah, national student demo in london on the 9th of november

which recently won the support of the NUS (whatever that means)

I think it means it might get a decent turnout. I really don't think the NUS is irrelevant or ever was, unfortunately. By far the biggest student demo was the NUS-organised demo which ended with Millbank being trashed. Don't know how passive or active their endorsement is though.

The student protests last year were so successful because we were fighting for something immediate. Now uni fees have risen and EMA's gone, and what we're fighting is more general, privatisation, it'll be difficult to attract anyone but politico's. Although privatisation will impact on us materially, it's less direct. Also we lost last year, even I'm feeling pretty demoralised from that about student stuff and not that up for going to demo's and stuff, and I'm one of the politico's! Still, good on NCAFC for organising it. You never know...

well yeah the NUS is handy for getting transport organised and publicity but its not a organisation that can in anyway be relied upon. As many students learned when the NUS president condemned them after millbank.

I know they're pretty silly questions, but I think many students will ask something similar. What would we be actually protesting against and didn't we already lose? Sorry I'm a bit pessimistic.

double post

Before the 10th of november last year many people were speaking in the same pessemistic tone about the idea of students protesting at all. That all change very quickly and the cynical people turned on a dime. I'm just saying, don't rule it out. You also have to remember that the mobilisations last year and their militancy had all kinds of motivations, to say it was all about the fees and therfore students stopped feeling up for it when the vote past is very naive.

We didn't only go out because of fees and EMA, also to condemn the HE White Paper (basically, privatising universities).

There is an ASN meeting this Saturday 19th Nov 2-5 pm at UCL

NCAFC have called a day of (localised) action for 23rd ahead of the strike, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes after the demo on the 9th - NUS fucked about saying they'd support it, then saying they wouldn't cos of some bullshit about health and safety, and in the end left it all so last minute and did such a good job of scaring off sabbs in student unions by telling them to advise their members not to go as it wouldn't be safe blah blah that not nearly as many people as were expected managed to get down, as there was no money for transport

It's funny when the cops made sure we were all as safe as lambs in a flock guarded by wolves.

This, ten times over. It is all fine NCAFC, but they have to find a way of organizing outside the SU, especially in places with shite SU's (like I presume Harrison is experiencing right now). I mean, yes the SU is a potential asset, but last week really proved how friggin shite it can be too

NCAFC

Yeah but I really don't see how they can get around this, if they still want to pursue national demos as a tactic. I wonder if there's still the feeling that big demos are worth it though.

To pull those off you need money for transport, and NUS are really the only people in a position to provide this (I think). Maybe larger groups like Coalition of Resistance or something, but I don't know the politics and logistics of how that might work.

But if the focus shifts towards local actions that are coordinated nationally (like the day of action for the 23rd of Nov for example) then you don't need SUs at all. I think that's maybe really good way for NCAFC to move around this issue of NUS being dicks, and move towards coordinated direct action campaigns instead?

Yeah, I think that's a very important point. There were places where anti-cuts groups organised separately from their SUs, and for the local action next week I imagine the vast majority of action will be extra-SU. For something like a national demo (and we can debate it's importance - especially when there's almost as many police as protesters - but I think it was worth calling) what's important is resources, particularly money to put on coaches, and very few anti-cuts groups have that, whereas SUs and the NUS do. I don't really know what the answer is there, SUs give us the possibility of far greater resources, but at the cost of only supporting very limited action and tying up our time and effort trying to win elections to them.

Yeah, have they released a statement of support yet or anything?

I'm not sure if they have, and yeah would be especially important as NUS, or maybe it's just my SU I forget, have said they won't back UCU's work to rule or action short of a strike if it affects exam marking etc.

Birmingham UCU are having teach-outs on their picket lines and we're tentatively considering having something similar in Edinburgh though we're yet to sort anything properly. But yeah student support for N30 is a massive issue, and I think lots needs to be done in terms of publicising the strike, what a picket line is, that kind of thing

I'm not a student so my ideas should be treated as such. Considering the Italian students' demonstration, I would say it is really worth to go for local actions. For one, it would solve many problems around the logistics as traveling through the country is costly in money and energy. What is more, to gain resources from SU's could take considerable amount of political compromises which I would say quite dangerous at this point.

Besides, local demonstrations can be more attracting than traveling through the country to be kettled by the police in London. Also, that gives the opportunity to maintain blocs easier and given the knowledge of the local area, there's more chance to bring the issue to the public. I think one of the major issue with the Nov9 in terms of location was that the City isn't the right place to draw any attention. The City as many similar urban areas are designed to be easily policed, blockaded from the lively parts of the whole city, and the access to these areas can be easily manipulated by the public transport routes.

And of course outside of London there is not the same level of policing, nor the same competency at public order policing

Not sure if there's a definitive statement just about N30 yet, though there definitely will be, but everything we're releasing at the moment should mention it, and the N23 stuff is meant to build towards N30 action.

There is a different level of policing outside of London, but that does have to be contrasted with the different scale of protest outside of London too. The last few uncut actions in Edinburgh, for example, have had more police than demonstrators - last time considerably more, including FIT teams, vans and un-marked vehicles. And there have been quite a few charges for uncut stuff outside London (excluding Fortnum and Mason quite a lot more). To quite a significant extent the policing outside London may start off much lower intensity but after a few actions it ramps up considerably. We can't rely on it being 'easier' in any sense outside London from that point of view I'd say.

Speaking to people from Occupy London, there are some ideas like calling 7 days of local occupations/ actions from the 23rd to the 30th to build for the strike, preferably places that are going to shut down like libraries, social centers, nurseries, etc. Also cracking our heads to find slogans that will unite everyone who is affected by the cuts, not only students and strikers, to understand that everything is part of a wider picture and we must all unite against it. Particularly talking about drawing attention to cuts in benefits that affect the unemployed, student debt for graduates, etc., let these people know that they're not alone, that there are people out there just like them that are ready to fight. Maybe people outside of London would like to also use similar tactics to get these people on the streets and join the strikers (also good to build relationships with our neighbours, something quite often ignored when you're a student in a new city), they're obviously angry, just need to know that there is someone out there.