‘Does Cornwall Understand Democracy?’ asks Lisa Camps…

After a peaceful and zealous student protest in Truro has been received with official complaints and police action, I’m forced to ask the titular question. Rather than seeing a politically mobilised group of students as a sign that the much-berated ‘youth of today’ might have some convictions after all, it seems that this idea, for some, is too hard to swallow.

Chants of “you’re Tory and you know you are” could be heard ringing outside the Liberal Democrat HQ on Charles Street before placards were left in the reception area and a weighty petition was delivered. Grounds for complaint? Apparently so. After then being referred to as ‘scum’ by the worker inside, many of the protesters have been left utterly incensed after their democratic voices seem not only to have been ignored, but seem to have been condemned as well. We were then told by the police that our behaviour had actually had an adverse effect on the positive delivery of our message. Again, I must stress that the very worst act committed was the continued occupation of the pavement outside the Conservative Club. Is Cornwall really so apathetic that it can no longer recognise this not only as a right, but a duty when injustice has been perpetrated?

For me, the most shocking opposition we faced was from a minority of the public. It seems vestigial individualism still grips the mind of many, at a time in British history when it has never been more important for, what is essentially, the proletariat to unite. The use of that word may have daunting, left-wing connotations for some, but after the government cuts take hold, I predict a lurch to the left will be needed and begged for. After all, whether it be against rises in fees, rises in tax, cuts in public services (I could go on), we’re all singing from the same hymn-sheet; we won’t accept injustice. It’s time this feeling of unity dissipated in Cornwall. Perhaps when its people have been brought to their knees by dangerous cuts, we’ll truly understand the importance of speaking out.

 

Lisa Camps is a student and activist in Cornwall

2010
11/10
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Students occupy streets surrounding parliament, and solidarity protest in Truro

Video: students occupy streets surrounding parliament|10Nov|Socialist Worker.

NUS Demonstration Photo-Stream

Over 50,000 students, lecturers, trade unionists and others marched together in London today against the cuts to university education and the rise in fees. Though there were a few violent scenes, the vast majority, as Aaron Porter of the NUS tweeted, were peaceful. From around the country people came to raise their voices against the Lib Dem betrayal.

The protest has, and is, making the topic of education cuts even more important and debated in parliament, as PMQ’s earlier showed. Nick Clegg was asked over a dozen questions about fees, which he dodged, disgracefully and predictably blaming the former government instead of answering the questions clearly.

An article in the Guardian suggested that we are seeing a return to the student radicalism of the late ’60s, and this should be wholeheartedly welcomed. Students who previously weren’t interested in how politics affects them are now realising that they must defend each other and fight the coalition.

Truro Demonstration

We set out to march in Truro today in solidarity with the NUS against the tripling of fees. Chants of ‘stop the cuts’ and ‘save our students’ were heard around our small city as we marched through the town. There was a large amount of support from the public, and we got over 600 signatures – shop owners, mothers, pensioners, shoppers and workers said they supported us. A great result, then. But the Lib Dem office was our main target.

We managed to get around 10 of us into the office to hand in our petition, express our feelings of betrayal and raise our voices in anger. ‘Shame on you’ was certainly the anthem of the hour. Since Cornwall has 3 Lib Dem MPs and many Lib Dem councillors, we sent a strong message that we will not accept them going against their pledges. Finally, our placards were thrown into the office, and a ‘save higher education’ banner plastered over their main sign.

The Conservative office, very near the Lib Dem’s office coincidentally, was struck by well over 50 students, chanting and putting up posters. There was a tiny police presence and we were mostly free to demonstrate, until one policeman told us to dissolve because we were ‘obstructing the highway’. I made it clear that we were on the pavement – not stopping traffic – and that if the fulfilment threshold of an obstructing the highway charge is so low, then that is undemocratic and effectively makes most protest and peaceful assembly illegal.

Nonetheless, we did disband after 3 hours and most felt the protest was a success. There were plenty of members of the press present and we therefore expect to get good coverage in the local media.

Congratulations to the NUS and UCU for organising the massive mobilisation in London today – we support you completely.

Now we wait and see if the right-to-recall constitutional legislation goes through, because if the Lib Dems in Cornwall vote for the tuition fee rise, we will make sure a by-election is called and that they are replaced by MPs who are not going to break their pledges to the electorate.

2010
11/10
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The Cuts in Cornwall

Though the cuts outlined in the coalition’s spending review have not yet taken hold, it will not be long before many people in Cornwall are adversely affected by this assault on the public sector. Debate seems almost theoretical at present – who will get hit hardest, where and what percentage the cuts are going to be and how local councils will deal with a highly constrained budget. But once the cuts start to bite, opposition, even among Conservatives, will steadily grow. Already, the majority of the public think the cuts are too much, too fast. In Cornwall this view is no doubt even more widely held, where reliance on the public sector and welfare is high due to limited job opportunities and poverty levels relatively more severe than in other parts of the UK. Despite unemployment being around 6% in the South West, fairly low when compared with unemployment in the North East, it will inevitably rise dramatically in a few months time. The false assurances that the private sector will magically and immediately absorb public job losses may not materialise, and Ed Milliband is right to say Osbourne is taking a massive gamble with people’s livelihoods for the sake of pursuing a right-wing monetarist ideology. But how will this affect myself and other students in Cornwall? The potential scrapping of EMA will prevent many in rural parts of Cornwall being able to even attend higher education, with EMA covering, or at least helping with, many students’ food, transport and studying costs. The increase in university fees, which is now being supported by Liberal Democrats, all of whom pledged to the NUS they would oppose any rise (3 of whom represent Cornish constituencies), will not only put off many students from poorer households, but will also create a dangerous market in education – where price of course becomes the main concern for students, instead of choosing the course which they want the most. Along with the £4.2 billion university cuts and therefore fewer places, this will mean universities once again become the refuge of the rich and effectively exclude struggling young people whose parents may not be able to help them out financially over their time at university. Vulnerable families will lose out in Cornwall when it comes to social housing too. With a current affordable housing shortage in the region, the plans to cut funding for social housing by over 50% and increase rent to near market levels will leave even more people without a home, and push those who can only just afford the new rates deeper into debt and hard times. Do we merely ask what will be cut – the library, the local school, infrastructure development, or staff at the hospital or the Post Office, soon to be effectively sold off? Or do we stand up and say people in Cornwall deserve better, and that the bankers and speculators who caused the financial crisis should take the burden, not those who can already barely afford to get through each week? The cuts will devastate our region and the nation as a whole unless we engage to defend working people, women, the disabled and students who will be worst hit by the government’s offensive. Investment, not cuts, will boost the economy and allow young people to have a fair future.
[This letter appeared in the West Briton in October]

2010
11/10
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Demo-lition 10.11.10 – NUS and UCU ‘Fund Our Future: Stop Education Cuts’

Demo-lition 10.11.10 – NUS and UCU ‘Fund Our Future: Stop Education Cuts’.

Save Our Students Music Video

One day left before the march – a march in which thousands of students from around the country will demonstrate in London against the rise in student fees from the £3k cap to up to £9,000 a year which will create a dangerous market in education that means cost, not quality of education, will be at the forefront of students’ minds. Except those with rich parents, of course.

The march will not just be students though. Teachers and university workers will join us to fight this assault on fairness, a word the coalition likes to throw around with very little meaning. And who knows, it might be the spark that politicises the nation’s youth. It is never healthy to make too many predictions, but perhaps this kind of demonstration will ignite action on a scale that the French have seen recently over the pension reforms. This shouldn’t just be about fee rises though. On a deeper level, it must be a message to politicians, and the Lib Dems in particular, that they cannot go back on their election promises: to slash the public sector and betray the electorate in exchange for a few cabinet posts.

Truro College students will be holding a solidarity protest tomorrow in Truro, and we hope that we can portray the Lib Dems as what they are: turncoats. Nonetheless, the human shield of the Lib Dems cannot replace the fact that it is the Conservatives – in their obsession with profit, not people – who are really pushing this rise in fees and a dessication of all aspects of social investment.

Cameron, Clegg and Osbourne all got their Oxbridge degrees for free. And they are now expecting students to bear the brunt of the cost of university funding. The millionaires are bound to lose against the masses this time though.

2010
11/09
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Don’t prevent poorer students going to college – Save EMA

Of all the cuts being made over the next few months, perhaps one of the least noted ones is that of Education Maintenance Allowance, or EMA. The government said they were going to ‘replace’ it – but in reality the whole of its budget is being scrapped, with practically nothing left to support students from poorer backgrounds.

An NUS survey in 2008 found that over two thirds of those receiving the £30 in EMA a week could not carry on in further education without it, meaning when it is cancelled, a huge number of working class young people will be effectively denied the opportunity to go to college and prepare them for what they want to do. Another policy, then, that prevents the poor from succeeding and instead condemns many to a job-path they do not want to take.

Thousands of students have been speaking out against the scrapping of EMA. James Mills recently started the Save EMA campaign, which I strongly recommend supporting. 16-19 year olds have been saying how the removal of the scheme will affect them – one said ‘“I need EMA my mum is on benefits and I am a full-time student at college without EMA I can’t go to college I will have to drop out and I don’t want to do that”.

With job opportunities limited, and less than a fifth of employers willing to hire people straight from school, it is vital that teenagers from poor households do not fall into unemployment and can go to college. Since one in 10 university graduates from 2009 are still unemployed a year on, think about how much higher this figure is for those unable to go even just to college or sixth form after school.

Alongside the abolition of EMA, another revelations last week is that 24 universities will see their entire teaching grants scrapped. Gone. 73 universities are having their grants cut by more than three quarters. This is devastating news for students who will be paying up to £9k a year to receive a significantly lower standard of education, when already contact time is minimal as lecturers focus more on research.

Bridget Phillipson is a Labour MP who received EMA and is supporting the Save EMA campaign. There are politicians willing to stand up in parliament for students. But our main platform will be the streets, social networks, and the media. Through these we can explain that youth unemployment is not conducive to economic recovery. Training our young people on the other hand, is.

Save EMA » MP who was on EMA backs Save EMA.

Sign the petition here at Save EMA.

2010
11/07
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Labour Members Free to Campaign For AV

Despite news from Andy Burnham saying Labour will not be campaigning for AV in the referendum in 6 months time, Labour members can campaign how they like, though the party is fairly divided in terms of Alternative Vote/First Past the Post support.

With the FPTP campaign way ahead with a large lead, we will need to campaign hard to ensure a fairer electoral system will be in place before the 2015 general election (earlier if the coalition collapses). Our current system has candidates winning on 30% of the vote – meaning the majority vote against the winner. But more importantly, it means voters too often have vote for the party they did not wish to support, in order to prevent their least preferred candidate winning. This is simply not acceptable in a democratic system. Voters should be able to vote for who they want, and to have a choice. Tactical voting rarely generates anyone’s ideal outcome.

Young Labour members in the South West largely support AV, in the conversations I’ve had with fellow Young Labour-ites. Vested interests are putting all they can into maintaining the status quo in terms of the electoral system, when the status quo is frankly broken and archaic.

This has nothing to do with party politics. We must forget that the Lib Dems support the AV yes vote. Labour supported AV in the 2010 manifesto, and even the Conservatives promised to review the electoral system. This is about what is the better system – now is the time to take a small step, closer towards proportional representation. If we don’t now, we may be stuck with first-past-the-post for decades to come.

2010
11/05
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Student protest and occupation in Ireland

Video: Student protest and occupation in Ireland | Coalition of Resistance Against Cuts & Privatisation.

Students in Dublin have been protesting in the thousands over the past week about massive cuts to education. This video highlights a frightening level of police brutality, but illustrates also the strong feelings of anger and disgust that they are feeling – that they are being attacked and not the bankers and millionaires who caused the financial crisis.

As we see student protests in the UK over the next week, momentum will build and build against student fees and Osbourne’s axe. The potential is there to successfully tackle the government’s plans, but either way, we have to make our voices heard.

The coalition of resistance, started by Tony Benn earlier this year, is at the forefront of the fight. Hopefully the movement will spread to Cornwall soon.

2010
11/05
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MPs in Cornwall Should Campaign Against the Tuition Fee Rise

No one, not even Liberal Democrats themselves, can now deny that they have let down their voters, after their complete U-turn on tuition fees over the past few weeks.

Nick Clegg told the NUS before the general election “We will resist, vote against, campaign against, any lifting of that cap” – the cap referring to the limit of £3290 a year students pay at uni. This cap is now being increased to £9000 – almost tripling the amount of debt students could have after graduating, and meaning some students may end up leaving university with upwards of £50k of debt when living costs are taken into account.

This move is a huge and unfair shift in the burden of university funding. It represents the fallacy that only students benefit from universities – when in fact it is the whole of society which benefits from university graduates; people who can tackle the problems of today: housing problems, global warming, economic stability and finding effective cancer treatments.

Instead of increasing fees, we should be increasing the banking levy and implementing the Robin Hood tax, which would generate billions to go towards retaining the £3k a year cap and reducing the deficit. Cutting the education budget will only make matters worse in the future when we do not have the people we need to fill top jobs and be our brightest thinkers.

But the biggest and worst consequence of the Lib Dem betrayal is the fact that it will put off thousands of poorer students from applying to university, and those that do will feel inclined to choose ‘cheaper’ subjects or universities. Since most wealthy students do not face that problem, the divisive social impact will be enormous. Introducing a two-tier university system when inequality levels in the UK are significantly higher than many other EU countries will be catastrophic.

Students, community groups, unions and charities nationwide oppose the hike in fees and cuts to education. The economic situation is difficult, but that is exactly why we should be supporting students right now.

So, Sarah Newton (MP for Truro and Falmouth) should deliver on the ‘compassionate’ side of the compassionate conservatism she claimed to support in the general election. But most importantly, Liberal Democrat MPs in Cornwall should remember their pledge to young people – to resist the increase in tuition fees and adopt a fairer system.

2010
11/05
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