Wednesday of this week marked exactly a year since the glorious day in November 2010 when thousands of students charged into and smashed up the Conservative Party headquarters at Millbank. A year on -- and 11 months since Parliament voted through the £9k tuition fee rise -- the student movement was out to prove that it’s still a force to be reckoned with. Despite only token backing from the National Union of Students, upwards of 10,000 students came from across the country to march on London’s financial district in a demo organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC).

A lot has changed since last November -- from the Arab revolutions to the huge anti-cuts demonstration on March 26th to the riots that hit English cities in August. And you could tell as much from the police presence: while the 50,000 strong ‘Millbank demo’ last year was initially policed by around 250 officers, this week’s demo had the much-vaunted figure of 4,000. Not to mention the horses, armoured vehicles, two helicopters, dogs, FIT teams, rubber bullets, intimidation letters sent the previous day and the thousands of twelve page glossy booklets that the police handed out at the starting point warning everyone not to fuck with them -- as if that much wasn’t obvious from the aforementioned 4000 cops, rubber bullets, cavalry… you get the picture. All justified by a bit of the usual pre-demo hysterics about anarcho-extremist infliltrators intent on causing a riot, nevermind that it was a totally legit demo organised in co-operation with the police, well stewarded and with a planned route ETC ETC.

Normally a demo of this size would barely get a mention from the media -- but Wednesday had it all: rolling news coverage, TV helicopters, hundreds of photographers -- all clamouring for things to kick off. And the police were trying their hardest to make sure things did as well: charging around in full Robocop get-up, shields out, and with plain-clothes occasionally jumping folk and dragging them off just cause they got a bit bored.

Elsewhere in London, thousands of electricians -- currently engaged in a huge struggle against the tearing up of their national pay and conditions agreement -- were at a Unite the Union organised demo, having blockaded building sites earlier in the day. While most then marched to Parliament to lobby MPs, a rank and file break-off of a couple of hundred sparks tried to march to join the student demo. Hundreds of militant private sector workers engaged in a frontline struggle uniting with the big student demo would’ve been a powerful image. With the media all over the student demo this would’ve then been hard to ignore, and something that wouldn’t have fit comfortably with the media narrative of middle class students just out to defend their own interests. And this is precisely why the state were determined to stop it from happening, with the sparks’ batoned and beaten up by the cops until being contained in a kettle away from the student demo. News quickly reached the student demo, and there was a bit of a stand-off  at one street when it was found out that the electricians were being blockaded in that direction. Such were the police numbers though that the demo was more akin to a walking kettle, and any attempt to break-off would’ve been verging towards kamikaze.

Electricians blockading sites before rallying later in the day and getting attacked by cops

The march picked up though, with a massive soundsystem emerging and some innovative chants, ‘You can shove your rubber bullets up your arse’ among them. It was a long route, and eventually wound its way to the end point sometime after 3pm, where the police decided to form an impromptu kettle before letting everyone go in a pretty chaotic fashion. A dispersal order was issued for 5.31pm, but most people were well away by that point.

Moving forward, NCAFC have -- much like last year -- called a follow-up day of action for Wednesday 23 November. While it’s unlikely to get as much momentum behind it as last year, given the totally different circumstances -- the HE White Paper is unlikely to garner as much opposition as the brazen, headline-grabbing £9k fees rise - it can be a way of buildng student and anti-austerity activity ahead of what is looking set to be a mass day of action on November 30, when three million public sector workers will be on strike. On that day, let’s meet “total policing” with total resistance.

An anti-cuts activist from Glasgow was sentenced to eighteen months in HMP Wandsworth at a London court on Friday, following his arrest at the March 26th TUC anti-cuts demonstration in London. His crime? Throwing a spent joke shop smoke bomb, picked up from the street, in the direction of a branch of Topshop – apparently enough to constitute ‘violent disorder’ and a lengthy prison sentence despite no damage being done to property or person. This was just one of a number of heavy sentences handed out to anti-cuts demonstrators at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, nearly all of them for similar (non-) offences – throwing sticks or pushing at barriers. Among the only positives on the day was for fellow Glasgow protester Bryan Simpson, who following a high profile defence campaign escaped with 120 hours community service and a four months suspended sentence for ‘affray’ at a student demo in London last November.

Omar Ibrahim was less lucky, and now looks to be in prison until at least next summer. In this statement that he wrote before being remanded in custody last month, Omar describes what happened on the day and draws the links between austerity, crisis and the growing use of draconian sentencing and political policing. Over the past year this has become increasingly visible, from the teenagers locked up for making comments on social media about the August riots to the gradual normalising of exclusion zones and pre-emptive arrests.

Yesterday’s sentences followed both the failure of Charlie Gilmour’s appeal and the recent upholding of the massively overboard sentencing doled out after the August riots. Then, all normal guidelines were thrown out in favour of disproportionate sentences for minor offences, due to their ‘mob’ nature which ‘aggravated’ violence and ‘appalled decent citizens’. What it comes down to is those unfortunate enough to be caught, regardless of what they may or may not have done, being punished massively out of context to their alleged ‘crime’. An assumption of innocence is disgarded – after all, if you made a choice to go on a protest, you’re practically asking to be locked up. Omar went on a protest, picked up a children’s toy off the street – and is now spending at least the next nine months in jail for it. It’s a crazy system, but one designed to scare and demoralise the rest of us – to keep us from protesting and keep us off the streets. As we once again prepare to take action en masse – with the latest round of student demos being kicked off this Wednesday and millions of workers lining up to take strike action on 30 November, we need to be as vigilant as ever. Read up on your rights, stay aware and keep fighting back. An injury to one is an injury to all! Support our political prisoners!

A full list the sentencing for violent disorder (and a selection of others) at London anti-cuts protests since Millbank is available here.

Big Ben was burned to the ground last week by protesters angry about the coalition government’s plans to sell off all of England’s publicly owned woodland. Unfortunately, it was just a model – this time, at least.

The government proposes to sell all of the Forestry Commission owned land in England. That’s 650,000 acres of land, including 20,000 hectares of ancient woodland… nearly 20% of all of England’s wooded land.

At the time of writing this article, more than 129,000 people have signed a petition against the plans, and there have been rallies and protests across England – most notably at the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, where 3000 protesters pledged to defend the people’s trees, culminating in a Wickerman-esque effigy burning as a sign of their seriousness and how far they’re willing to take their defence campaign.

In May, David Cameron declared that he wanted to coalition to be the “greenest government ever”. Indeed, the Conservative party logo is a tree. And yet they’re more than happy to sell off one of England’s most vital assets to the highest bidder, to do with what they will. Who needs oxygen producing trees and diverse eco-systems when you can have retail parks and office suites?

Forestry is a devolved issue – meaning that the parliament in Westminster gets has no say over what happens to Scotland’s forests – which is why it is only the land that the Forestry Commission own in England which is to be sold at the moment.

But the Scottish Government are slightly behind Westminster’s schedule when it comes to announcing cuts, and there is a great deal of pressure on Holyrood to conform to the cuts agenda. Scottish Environment Minister Roseanne Cunningham made a statement a few months ago denying any plans to sell off Scotland’s forests, which is definitely a positive step in terms of defending our woodlands against any future attacks.

However, many would see forests and woodlands as an easy target for cuts compared to rowdy students and benefits claimants – which is why it’s more important than ever that the anti-cuts movement is vocal in opposition to all cuts.

Our forests are just as important an asset for the future as education and public services, and we need to prepared to stand up and say so.

fascism with a feathery face

Times are hard for the English Defence League. As they drift ever further into obscurity and irrelevance – continuing to insist to anyone who’ll listen that the single greatest threat to the British working class right now is the impending arrival of islamofascism – their tactics are becoming increasingly desperate.

Britain’s inevitable transformation to an Islamic Republic could, according to the dogma to which the EDL subscribe, come from anywhere. So while the minds of the population have been concentrated on slightly greater issues – namely the path of total destruction of the welfare state that the Tories are currently taking us down with glee – the EDL have spent the past few months running around in chicken suits outside fast food restaurants, in a bid to halt the encroach of halal chicken across Britain. Sharia law is surely only a step away.

And just last week, it was reported that dozens of EDL members have submitted compensation claims after they were involved in a “horrifying” (read: minor paint damage) coach crash en route to a demonstration in Preston in November. With 78 claims submitted, it soon transpired that there was only about 25 EDL supporters on the coach. Although maybe they’re keen to recoup some cash from all the lucrative merchandise money they’ve been losing out on after their transactions list was leaked recently. Understandably, the coach company aren’t amused.

However, while laughing at the English Defence League has become a new national sport, it would be foolish to write the organisation off. The growing sense of political polarisation, which will intensify as the cuts begin to be felt, is not lost on the EDL. Earlier this month, leadership figure “Tommy Robinson” (real name Steven Yaxley-Lennon) gave a flavour of the direction the EDL are moving in. Responding to the student demonstrations which shook the country in November and early December, Robinson told an assembled mob in Peterborough that the EDL are “disgusted with the behaviour of the so called fuckin’ students in London… we support British police, we are their allies…. we never want to see the British police attacked by people of this country”, with no sense of irony.

What followed was a confused mess of misdirected class anger, casual racism and out-and-out jingoism. There’s the references to ‘our boys’ and Britain’s imperial wars abroad,  much more adoration of ‘British police’, the usual digs at ‘the Muzzies’ and then a lot of OUTRAGE at the people who ‘desecrated’ the statue of Churchill in Westminster, a man who represents “every single thing this country is about” and is a “fuckin’ prophet”. He even tells the mob that ”every EDL member should shake the hand of a British policeman”. It’s unclear whether the eleven arrests that took place later in the day were actually just the police overreacting to friendly handshakes.

But beyond this fawning patriotism, his greatest vitriol is reserved for ‘the students’, who “do not understand what it is to be a working class member of this community” and “never ever lived a normal day in their life”. Pretty remarkable given that that the demonstrations have been precisely about access to uni for working class students, battling a government determined to raise fees to a level that will burden all but the richest graduates for life.

Tommy Robinson (far left) at a BNP meeting in 2007 - he's consistently denied any connection to the party

But it’s an identical narrative to the one that the tabloids have been ramming down our throats over the past two months. Within hours of the Millbank demo, journalists were pouring through the facebook pages and backgrounds of so-called ‘ringleaders’, attempting to smear them, and by implication all, students as upper class, undeserving and spoilt. Similar tactics have since been used against UKuncut. The agenda here is clear – to make their predominantly working class readership feel distance from the student and anti-cuts struggles, by painting all those within them as either reckless militants (Bob Crow, Len McLuskey) or upper class kids living out their teenage rebellion. The idea that normal people are out on the streets terrifies the media – which is why they’ll do everything to convince their readers otherwise, and place that distance between them.

The EDL are not a traditional party of the far-right, but the consequence of years of tabloid lies about Muslims, immigrants and asylum seekers – their politics more  The Sun than Der Sturmer. But the EDL are adapting to the times and it’s little surprise that they’re now concentrating as much of their ire on ’students’ and ‘reds’ as ‘the Muzzies’. It also neatly fits in with their bullshit notions of ‘old Albion’ and bizarre view of British history, with the students, allegedly, seeking to destroy everything that makes Britain great – statues of racist Prime Ministers, for instance, while the EDL frame themselves as the valiant last defence against Islamo-Bolshevik takeover.

In a time of crisis, the English Defence League are reverting to fascist type. They claim to be the true voice of the English working class – but it’s clear on which side they really stand. They idolise the Queen and Winston Churchill, who was an admirer of Italian fascism, ordered troops to march on workers during the 1926 General Strike and held a racist and anti-semitic worldview. For all that they claim Britain is a “two tier” system, they crucially fail to see the real dividing line – not their fantasy of a system that favours Muslims above all others, but of the class divide.

Currently, the EDL are content with running around after Anjem Choudary’s equally deranged Jihad4Anglia warriors and scrubbing graffiti off of Churchill’s statue. But is it beyond the realms of possibility that, over the coming twelve months and as class conflict intensifies, the EDL will be turning up at pickets to intimidate striking workers, beating up students protesters or, as in Greece, providing back-up militia to riot police? History tells us it is not – underlining the crucial importance of class-oriented anti-fascist work in the period we’re now in.

It’s hard to know where to start with the Royal Wedding. So much of the commentary  surrounding it almost goes beyond parody – take this mental ‘satirical’ (?) rant from Richard Littlejohn about the bride being forced to wear a “designer burka from the Kate Moss Intifada Collection at Topshop”, or this horrendously fawning circle-jerk by bigoted unionist knobhead David Starkey.

Criticism has been wiped out from the mainstream media. Few are willing to raise their heads above the parapet and question the nature of, let alone criticise, the ‘wedding of the century‘, in a manner which bears huge similarities to the ‘poppy fascism’ that we wrote about last week, where subservience to a supposedly apolitical  ’national institution’ becomes mandatory.

Which makes it all the more surprising, and brilliant, when the first major criticism of the wedding to be splashed across the national media comes from someone who is, in theory, under the direct authority of the Monarchy. Yep, far from a ‘usual suspect’, the man who’s managed to outrage the Daily Mail, the Tories and the Church hierarchy is, believe it or not, a Church of England bishop, Pete Broadbent. Writing on his twitter and facebook page, Bishop Broadment has attacked the wedding as ‘nauseauting tosh’, and said that ‘I don’t care about the royals, I’m a republican. Talent isn’t passed on through peoples’ bloodstock, the hereditary principle is corrupt and sexist.’

In something which has particularly outraged right-wing sensibilities, he also added: ‘As with most shallow celebrities, they will be set up to fail by the gutter press. I give the marriage seven years.’

Legend.

Republican hero Bishop Broadbent also commented, “I managed to avoid the last disaster in slow motion between Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll, and I hope to avoid this one too… I think we need a party in Calais for all good republicans who can’t stand the nauseating tosh that surrounds this event.”

We’ve got a better idea. The wedding is reportedly to be on Thursday 28 April, at Westminster Abbey. David Cameron is even giving us proles a day off to celebrate. Let’s go and join them? After all, International Workers Day slash May Day pagan-fest  is only a couple of days later.

I’ll bring the wickerman.

Scottish students assemble at ULU

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably already well aware of Wednesday’s huge demonstration against education cuts that took place in London. Over the past few days a massive amount has already been written about it, both in the mainstream press and all over the internet and social media.

It was a brilliant demonstration. Myself and a few other SSYers attended along with the 1500 or so other Scottish students who took the gruelling 18+ hour round trip to London. Dropped off at the University of London Union early on Wednesday morning, after breakfast the Scottish contingent grouped and set off on an impromptu feeder march through the streets of central London. The fact that no police showed up during the feeder demo, not even to direct traffic, was a bit of a surprise -- and would turn out to be a forbearer of the events of later on.

Arriving at Horse Guards Avenue -- in Whitehall, surrounded by government departments -- at 11am, there was already thousands of students assembled, and an immediate sense that this would be a very angry, and very big, demo. And this was a whole hour and a half before the official marching off time. As more and more students piled in, it became impossible to tell how many were there -- estimates of 50,000+, more than double what march organisers the National Union of Students had been predicting, seem reasonable.

What was on display was a very palpable rage -- in particular at Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, with the most popular chant of the march turning out to be ‘Nick Clegg we know you, you’re a fucking Tory too!’. Coach loads of students came from across the country -- from probably every university in Britian and hundreds of colleges. For many, or even the majority, of those attending, it was their first demonstration. The grounds have hopefully now been laid for a mass struggle against the imposition of the fee rises and drastic cuts to the higher education budget over the coming months.

The demo set off at 12.30pm, passing through Whitehall, Big Ben and the Parliament. In theory, the march was divided into different sections by region, with Scotland coming nearer the front of the march. A lively section, complete with smoke flares and constant chanting ,centred around the Glasgow and Strathclyde Uni Anti-Cuts Action Network banners, drew in several hundred students. This then provided a critical mass of people that, when the demonstration passed the Conservative headquarters, in Millbank towers on the banks of the Thames, was able to charge in the direction of the building and successfully break through the doors.

What happened next, over the course of a few hours, has dominated almost all the media coverage of the demo. Initially around sixty protesters broke through the locked doors of the building and entered the foyer, at about 1.30pm. At this stage there was no police around, but when a few cops showed up, half the students inside the building panicked and ran back out, leaving about 30 inside. Hundreds, however, began to gather around the building, laying siege to the glass panelled walls and putting 10-15 police in the position of holding back hundreds of protesters. Over the next half hour, a few people did succeed in breaking through the police line, but with our numbers still pretty low, we decided to leave the building in victory rather than risk arrest.

But this was far from the end of it. Numbers continued to swell outside of Millbank, and hundreds more began pushing to enter the building. It was at this stage that missiles began to be thrown, and before long, the windows were broken, one by one, as over a hundred students stormed the building once again, with a smaller group gaining access to its roof. At the pictures illustrate, thousands were now gathered outside. I had to go and get my bus back to Glasgow at this point -- and pushing my way through the assembled masses was a tough job in itself.

The march organisers, aided by the media, have gone out of their way to condemn these actions as those of a small minority of ‘idiots’ and ‘violent anarchists’, the implication being that those carrying out these ‘violent’ acts weren’t even students. This flies in the face of the facts -- thousands of students taking part in a spontaneous act of civil disobedience. When things did get taken too far -- like the now infamous fire extinguisher incident, they were shouted down by the mass of the protest. When someone was about to throw a paving slab at a line of police, it’s reported that other protesters stepped in to stop them. Endangering peoples’ lives cannot be condoned -- but it’s important to point out that it was isolated to a few tiny actions, which pale against the wider picture of the Millbank occupation, let alone the march of 52,000 students.

One thing is certain -- the smashing up of Tory HQ was significant. A glance at any of the coverage of the demo proves as much. It gave the march maximum media exposure, meaning it entered public consciousness in the way that the it would, in all likelihood, otherwise not have. For evidence of this, look no further than Paul O’Grady, fast becoming Britain’s best populist agitator against the cuts, who while talking about ‘the riots’, said on his teatime show yesterday that ‘education should be for everybody, not just for those who can afford it’.

I’ve seen it myself: the aftermath of the demo has led to students up and down the country talking about fees, cuts and the fightback in a way that would have been unimaginable even a week ago. As a whole, the march has given a huge confidence boost to workers and students across the UK. It was a timely display of the anger that exists, and will continue to grow, in large swathes of the population.

The question now is: where next? The NUS, taking a break from shamelessly attacking the people they’re supposed to represent, have said that they’ll be ‘lobbying Lib Dem MPs’, and working out more ways to attack the left. The momentum that has been built up over the past few days needs to be maintained. Grassroots student groups are calling for a nationwide day of action on Wednesday 24 November -- of occupations, strikes and walk-outs. Students across Scotland are expected to organise demonstrations on this day, reportedly the same day on which the government will vote on their plans to raise tuition fees. The SSY site will bring you all the details as we get them -- for the moment, students in Glasgow will be meeting both at their own unis and colleges next week, and then for a city-wide meeting at the Art School on Thursday 18 November to finalise their plans.

The student movement must also strive to build up links with wider layers of society facing the same government attacks -- the labour movement, claimants, pensioners and school students among them. While HE students may have set the ball rolling, the struggle against cuts and austerity cannot be won by students alone -- the fight is on to build a unified movement that can overthrow the Coalition.

For more on the government’s proposals for Higher Education & fees, read here.

George gets defensive about how many people want him to stand

After lots of threatening to do it over the past 5 years, George Galloway looks set to finally stage a comeback attempt to Glasgow.

This weekend, his party, RESPECT, are discussing the possibility of setting up in Scotland. But before they’ve even had a chance to vote on it, George has as good as said he’s going to do it anyway, if not as RESPECT then as ‘George 4 Glasgow.’

When asked why he’s thinking of doing this, his justification has had two major points: “I am awesome” and that he’s against “separatism.” So we can expect him to run an inspired campaign about how much we need him waffling away in the Scottish Parliament, and against independence. Just check out his recent performance on Newsnight Scotland, where he managed to not mention a single socialist policy, talked about how he was a celebrity and the only piece of politics he did advocate was British unionism:

Read the rest of this entry »

LIAR: nick clegg promises to vote against fee increases.

If last month’s Browne Review was the warning shot, today’s announcement that the government intend to treble the cap on fees for higher education in England to an astounding £9,000 a year, is the declaration of war.

All universities will be able to charge up to £6,000 a year, double the current rate of £3,290. However, if certain conditions are met in relation to admitting students from ‘poorer backgrounds’, the top-level that universities will be able to charge will jump to £9,000. This is nothing more than an attempt to create a two-tier education system, where top universities are able to charge more and price out anyone but the richest. The measure to allow  some students from ‘economically disadvantaged’ background is sheer tokenism and will do nothing to redress the already overwhelming inequality in access to higher education.

The vast majority of students will be forced to take out astronomical student loans to cover their fees -- and proposals are afoot to raise the level of interest to well-above inflation. The huge rises in fees are to make up for the, in some cases, total departure by the state in funding for higher education. Indeed, in humanities, arts and social sciences, the teaching budget at English unis is facing a cut of 100% -- the shortfall will be made up by students paying for it.

What’s all the more shocking about this is that if the proposals pass, it will be with the backing of Lib Dem MPs. The same Lib Dem MPs who stood for election on the basis of opposing rises in tuition fees -- 57 of whom even signed an NUS pledge to vote against any rise in the cost of tuition. In fact, they went further than that -- the Lib Dems said that they would scrap tuition fees altogether! But as we’ve come to expect from Clegg and pals, any principles they once pretended to hold went straight out the window when some shiny ministerial cars and cabinet jobs came along.

With the huge rise in fees down south, it wont take long for university principals in Scotland to begin ratcheting up the pressure on the Scottish Government to reintroduce some form of fees in order that they’re ‘not left behind’. But the fees increase in England can be defeated -- last week’s militant demonstration in Oxford showed the level of anger among students at the government’s plans to wreck education as we know it. The campaign needs to be stepped up nationwide, and there’s calls for a national day of action on the 24 November, involving walk-outs, sit-ins and demonstrations. Next week, tens of thousands of students from all over the UK are expected to take to the streets for the join NUS/UCU demo against education cuts in London, in a huge show of force against the attacks on education. The government needs to be made to listen -- and if enough Lib Dem MPs can be forced to abide by their election pledges by voting against, rather than just abstaining, the rise in fees, it will fall.

Bonus videos!

Students on the march at Glasgow Uni, 20/10/2010

Higher education in the UK is facing a swathing, ideological attack from the coalition government – that will fundamentally change the face of university and college education as we know it.

Last week’s publication of the Browne Review, on the future of higher education funding, recommended raising the limit on tuition fees for UK students at English universities from the current level of £3290 to a staggering £12,000. It’s anticipated, however, that only the top universities will charge this amount, with most students in England facing annual fees of £7,000.

In Scotland, university and college education has been free since 2007, when the graduate endowment, a £2,300 fee paid after graduating, was finally scrapped. This followed the abolition of annual tuition fees in 1999, one of the first acts of the new Scottish Parliament.

Making further and higher education free has been one of the most progressive and useful things the devolved government has achieved over its eleven years. And although the current situation is far from perfect – the funding body SAAS is a bureaucratic mess and the SNP have failed to deliver on their promise to ‘dump student debt’ and reintroduce grants – it’s still a hell of a lot better than in England, where students can expect to incur massive debts just to pay their tuition.

But now pressure is mounting on the Scottish Government to reintroduce fees, ahead of a review on the future of higher education funding, due this December. A similar review for England last week recommend that the cap on tuition fees should be raised to a staggering £12,000 a year. For a standard three year degree, this could entail nearly £40,000 worth of debts, before living expenses and rent even enter the equation. For those study longer courses like medicine or postgraduate degrees, the cost would be even higher. With the report also recommending a rise in the interest rate on loans to some 5.3 percent, the debt would burden the vast majority of students for much of their working life, only being written off after thirty years.

Today, in the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, Chancellor Gideon ‘George’ Osborne announced £3 billion in cuts for university teaching – a cut of 80 percent, double what any other department or local authority is facing. And they want students to fill in the funding gap.

What it represents is an almost total departure by the state in the funding of higher education tuition, with the burden being passed to the individual, cue the sudden need for such massive fees. It’s also a clear attempt to introduce a market into the university sector; currently, every institution charges the full £3,290, but with the ability to raise fees to nearly quadruple this sum, it’s likely that only the top universities will charge the full £12k. For students from working class families, this will simply price them out.

Due to the moves to dramatically raise fees down south, the management of every Scottish university have now united to say that so they aren’t ‘left behind’ English unis, they want more money – and facing hefty government spending cuts – they want it from students. Some heads, including Glasgow Uni’s Anton Muscatelli, are also pushing for ‘variable rates’ for different courses, which would involve charging different fees depending on their degree, again a blatant attempt to marketise education along the lines of US universities.

Muscatelli has said that Glasgow University will go bust by 2013 ‘unless corrective action is taken’. This means one thing: cuts, and lots of them – which the GMB union on campus have condemned as ’savage, needless and ideologically driven’. Indeed, while the Tories agenda of rampant neo-liberalism and cutting back on the state has been laid bare, many of our country’s university principals share a similar ideology, as they attempt to drive education in the direction of big business.

Tuition fees remain highly controversial in Scotland, and chances are the SNP and Labour will shy away from any hints that they might bring them back, until after next May’s election anyway. What we do have on ours hands though is a huge struggle against university managements and a Tory government who do not share the same interests as the vast majority of students. France shows the way.

The National Union of Students, along with the University and Colleges Union which represents academic staff, has called a national demonstration against tuition fee rises & cuts in Higher Education funding on Wednesday 10 November, in central London. Coaches are running from every uni, and some colleges, in Scotland – ask at your student union. More info at: www.demo2010.org

Following the relative success of their wee day out to Kilmarnock -- where the shameful actions of Strathclyde Police ensured that their ‘march’ could go ahead -- the SDL are intending to have another go at parading through Glasgow next month, on Saturday 18th September.

As you might recall, when the SDL last tried to march in the city, the first far-right demo in Scotland for decades, they were met by thousands of anti-fascists who opposed them directly on the streets and ensured that the police soon bussed them out of the city centre. It was a resounding victory, and a repeat of this situation when they tried to hold a demo in Edinburgh in February was enough for many to see the organisation as finished. Not so -- they came back for a jaunt to Killie, had a nice day, and since then have been intent on making their trip to the big city as much of a success.

Responding to an official complaint from the Scottish Anti-Fascist Alliance, the police have sought to defend their actions in Kilmarnock on the grounds that they cannot discriminate against ‘legal protest’ and that their heavy-handed treatment of anti-fascists was both ‘justified and proportionate’ in keeping order on the day.

This all sets a worrying precedent for September 18th. The SDL have learnt from their previous mistakes, and now know that by meeting inside pubs, they’ll invariably just end up getting kettled within by the police, and in turn, hundreds of anti-fascists. On the other hand, meeting on the street offers them both police protection, and guarantees that they’ll get some kind of street protest/shouting match. So this time, the SDL have applied for a demo which will, they claim, gather in Blytheswood Square towards the west of the city and march to George Square, where they intend to lay a wreathe at the cenotaph. It will be doubly ironic if the SDL are allowed to assemble at their desired location, given that Blytheswood Square is now off limits to everyone else.

What Kilmarnock demonstrated though was that the state cannot be relied on at any level to stop the threat of organised fascism. Ultimately, the police will attempt to keep public order -- and if this means allowing the SDL/EDL/NF to march, then so be it. It’s a game of numbers, one which worked to our advantage in Glasgow and Edinburgh, less so in Kilmarnock and countless EDL demos down south. Mobilising against fascism doesn’t have to be difficult -- in fact it’s been one of the best, most gratifying and worthwhile things that SSY has been involved with over the past 12 months. In Glasgow and Edinburgh hundreds, even thousands, of ordinary people have been angry enough to take to the streets in direct action against fascism.

Which makes it all the more bizarre that there’s a growing school of thought which says that the EDL “shouldn’t be opposed”, because this is “playing into their hands” and “harming community relations”. It doesn’t come as any great surprise to hear that this is being spearheaded by the ‘anti-fascist’ magazine Searchlight, and their establishment-backed front organisation Hope Not Hate. The entire strategy of Searchlight and HNH rests on making appeals to the state to ‘ban’ nasty people -- bans which then all too easily backfire against the left. Their major success in this so far was Luton last year, where they managed to get ALL political gatherings banned for several months in a bid to stop one EDL march -- great job guys!

Bradford is a special case in many respects, given the race riots which happened there in 2001. But simply calling for the EDL to be banned does not get around this -- the main catalyst for the disorder in 2001 was  a march by the National Front. A march that, as it happens, was banned by the authorities from taking place. But this ban didn’t stop some of the Nazis showing up anyway -- and similarly, a ban on the EDL’s march isn’t going to stop a large amount of their support showing up either. They’ve been building up this demo for months, constistently referring to it as ‘the Big One’ and one that ‘one wont be for families’. It doesn’t take long to figure out what they want: a ruck with the local Asian youth (with  one third of Bradford’s population being Muslim).

It’s particularly shameful that the local trade union council has come out against any planned counter-demo, alongside “most political parties, faith groups and community groups”, according to Hope Not Hate. In effect, all they’re doing is alienating those that will come out to oppose the EDL -- abandoning any local youth who come out to defend their community from attack by the thugs of the EDL. The local labour movement should be at the forefront of direct action to stop the EDL, not cowering at the back cause they’re scared they might get hit. A broad, united anti-fascist demo would send a clear message to the EDL, and people watching from all over the UK, that Bradford stands against them. Sitting at home and abandoning the local Asian youth to defend their city is exactly what will lead the media to portray the whole thing as a ‘race riot’. And that’s what we all want to avoid.

Dresden shows how it’s done -- 13.02.2010