The pavement outside the Radisson Hotel on Argyle Street, Glasgow was the setting of a showdown last night between electricians -- currently fighting the tearing up of a national pay agreement that will see wage cuts of up to 35 percent and the wholesale de-skilling of their trade -- and industry bosses, who were arriving for a glitzy awards bash.

Around one hundred electricians and supporters gathered outside the hotel from early evening in a protest organised by Unite, as tuxedo-attired construction chiefs, visibly shaken, sipped champagne within the glass confines of the hotel. Industry bosses were heckled and booed as they entered the hotel, with chants going up of “we’re going to ruin your party” and “we’re coming to get you!”.

This was the latest in an ongoing series of protests following the decision by eight major firms to pull out of the national JIB agreement, which offers protection on pay and conditions. Already one company has been forced to enter back into the agreement -- the other seven have yet to follow.

This is a vital struggle to protect workers’ rights in the private sector, with the economic crisis being used as a pretext to smash the joint-industry agreement. Further protests are set to be staged over the few next weeks across the country, including at Govan Shipyard this Wednesday 12 October. Unite have told their members to get organised and to get ready for a ballot, as the employers prepare to impose deadlines for signing onto the new terms and conditions.

An emergency protest was held in Glasgow earlier today against a planned mass deportation of Nigerian asylum seekers, set to take place on a specially charted flight overnight tonight. Among those who have been detained by the UK Border Agency over the past week are three Glasgow-based asylum seekers, including one who has been resident in the UK for nearly 30 years, and John Oguchukwu, a Glasgow University student who has been here for nine years, having come to the UK fleeing religious persecution and torture following the murder of his family in Nigeria. Friends and neighbours of John were among those at today’s demonstration.

The move to deports dozens of asylum seekers from across the UK today comes as part of a crackdown over the past few years, with hundreds deported to Nigeria. This is due to the country being given ‘white list’ status for male asylum seekers by the Home Office, meaning applications are automatically dismissed regardless of whatever evidence is provided. And in their bid to rush as many asylum applicants as possible onto one charter flight, human rights go out the window – in the case of John Oguchukwu, he has ended up on the flight due to a  bureaucratic mix-up which has denied him his right to appeal to the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights.

Contrary to the image that the right-wing media have managed to popularise, the fact is that the vast majority of asylum seekers are genuinely fleeing from persecution in their home country. Research has shown that most asylum seekers that arrive in Britain did not even set out with it as their planned destination – the idea that masses of refugees are pouring across the UK’s borders in order to ’scrounge off benefits’ is simply a myth.

Those fleeing persecution and violence deserve our support and should be made welcome, not treated like criminals, rounded up and deported to an uncertain future. Refugees are welcome here!

Occupied Strathclyde

Crunch decisions over cuts at both Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities over the past week have yielded mixed results for the anti-cuts movement in the city. With, in particular, Humanities subjects under threat at both universities, a huge amount was at stake.

Since February, when course cuts were revealed at Glasgow University, a mass campaign has been mounted across the city in defence of education, coming off the back of the tuition fees protests late last year. A focus of this has been the Free Hetherington at Glasgow Uni, which enters its 150th day of (near) continuous occupation this Thursday, although a large-scale campaign has also been mounted across the city at Strathclyde which has similarly hit national headlines.

Demo at Glasgow Uni last week

At Glasgow, staff, student and external pressure was able to achieve a massive climbdown from management, who had initially proposed slashing nursing, adult education, anthropology and nearly all modern language teaching. All are now saved – or have at least gained reprieves – although last Wednesday’s vote will see Slavonic studies, the Centre for Drug Misuse Research and humanities courses at the university’s Dumfries campus go. Following a decision yesterday, Strathclyde is set to lose music, geography, sociology and community education, in line with Principal Jim McDonald’s vision of transforming the university into a ‘centre of technical excellence’ on par with MIT. In reality, this is of course a neo-liberal realignment of the university towards profitable, business friendly research, being achieved under a smokescreen of austerity savings. At Glasgow, the equally unaccountable, and equally contemptible, Principal Muscatelli has even stated, having last year fear-mongered about the ‘university going bust within four years’, that the cuts are not – after all – about financial necessity, but purely ’strategic’. Which does help explain the huge surplus the university recently announced.

Ahead of the court meeting at Strathclyde, students and anti-cuts activists entered into occupation on Monday morning. Although an attempt to seize the senate suite, in which the actual vote would be taking place the following day, was foiled by security, the soon to be closure-hit Sociology and Geography floor of the Graham Hills building was occupied overnight, with a packed public meeting taking place in the evening, which heard from local trade union activists and community campaigners. Early the following morning a picket was then held as the University Court met, with the occupation coming to an end.

The battle is far from over, and nor will these be the last cuts that Muscatelli, McDonald and their counterparts across the country attempt to force through. Over the past few months, Glasgow Uni in particular has witnessed the emergence of a mass movement against the cuts, with upwards of 2000 joining a march on the uni court in February, and hundreds rallying to the occupation following the well-documented eviction attempt in March. The new term presents real opportunities for continuing to build and strengthen this movement against cuts and fees, as part of the wider fight across society against capitalist austerity.

500,000 marched, but what now?

A ‘Coalition of Resistance’ is set to get off the ground in Glasgow over the next few weeks, with a view to bringing together the various strands of the anti-cuts movement in the city. SSY has been involved in initiating the group, as one of the signatories to an open letter, an edited version of which was published in the Sunday Herald this week.

An initial organising meeting is set to be held this Thursday evening, at 7pm in the STUC offices on Woodlands Road. It is hoped that COR will develop into a regular cross-city forum, which can play an important role in organising and mobilising resistance to austerity and cuts over the coming period. If we’re to see anything like the kind of resistance which has swept parts of Europe recently, having such organisations – with a broad base in the workers and students movement – will be vital. With the student movement in the UK, we’ve already seen flashes of this – over November and early December last year, an intense period of struggle saw near weekly mass demonstrations in most cities, and student assemblies springing up across the country.

The time is now ripe for broadening the struggle to unite workers, students, claimants, pensioners and all other suffering the attacks of the ruling class. The government are already running scared: just yesterday, Business Secretary Vince Cable wheeled out threats of making the anti-trade union laws even harsher, in a speech to the GMB union’s conference. Today, the GMB responded by promising “the biggest civil disobedience campaign Cameron and Clegg’s tiny little minds have dreamt of” if any attempt is made to change the strike laws.

Nonetheless, there’s been a lot of frustration recently at the apparent unwillingness of the TUC, and the large public sector unions, to really take on the government. Yes, upwards of 500,000 may have marched on March 26th, but since then, not a great deal has been forthcoming, particularly in the context of the fighting talk at last September’s TUC Congress. Things may begin to change on June 30th, when hundreds of thousands of government workers in the PCS union are set to strike over pensions. In England, teachers from the NUT and ATL unions are expected to join, while the UCU lecturers’ union are currently deliberating on the matter too, meaning up to 700,000 workers could be on strike across the UK on the day. This is an important first step, and there’s talk of further action in the Autumn, when larger unions like Unison, the GMB and Unite may also join in. However, if stopping the austerity programme by toppling the Coalition government is the aim – which it surely must be – then a 24 hour public sector co-ordinated strike sometime in the Autumn will simply not be enough. In Greece, the trade unions confederations have now organised over ten 24 hour general strikes coupled with mass demonstrations, yet the IMF imposed austerity programme continues unabated. In France last year, a series of mass demonstrations and strikes in key sectors of the economy brought the country to a virtual standstill, nearly bringing Sarkozy’s government to its knees. Yet the movement ultimately failed, with the pension reform passing. In Britain, we can’t even get a general strike on the go, so what the hell kind of hope do we have?

The movement needs to broaden out and radicalise. It needs to be embedded in every community and workplace for a mass campaign of defiance and resistance to the cuts. The organisations of the traditional left do have a key role to play in this – the weight of the trade union movement in the UK is still considerable, representing 6.5 million members and the old adage rings true: while 1000 striking students can bring a train to a standstill, a 1000 striking railway workers can bring a whole country to a standstill.  But it would be foolish to rest everything on the ability of the public sector trade unions to bring down the government. The majority of people, and particularly young people, are no longer organised in a union, and ways must be found around this. One notable aspect about the recent mass anti-austerity demonstrations that have swept Spain has been a conscious rejection of the traditional organs of the left. Spontaneous in nature and largely organised online, the mass protests and assemblies have not relied on left political parties nor trade unions, although undoubtedly both have played some role. The labour movement does appear to be increasingly coming to recognise the need for a fight that extends beyond the workplace – indeed, figures like Unite’s Len McLuskey have spoken openly on the need to extend the fight across society.

In Scotland, we’re obviously also in a unique situation when it comes to fighting the cuts, with a pro-independence majority now in Holyrood. The SNP have no real solutions though, and although blaming Westminster for reducations in their block grant, will nonetheless be forced to implement huge cuts. Post-independence, the SNP strategy of slashing corporation tax and reliance on oil revenue is not a sustainable basis on which to build a country in which “the poor won’t be made to pick up the bill for the rich” and where “the profit from the land shall go to all”, as Alex Salmond promised to the Scottish Parliament recently. These contradictions will become more and more exposed over the next couple of years.

In the meantime, we need to build the kind of organisations that people will look to as the cuts begin to bite. SSY is hopeful that a Coalition of Resistance group in Glasgow can be a useful tool in aiding this struggle, in uniting organised workers with students, the unemployed and the unorganised, and we urge people to get along to the open planning meeting this Thursday, with the aims of immediately building solidarity with those striking on June 30th, and building the resistance from there.

Ever feel like you’re being watched? If you’re a politically engaged person in Glasgow you probably are. Every single demo is followed by hordes of cops in uniform, in plain clothes, in mad vans with rotating cameras on top, on horses, in helicopters, on bikes and motor bikes. Sadly Strathy Police recently had their audacious application for a TARDIS unit rejected.

At the heart of this is all round top guy Nelson Telfer, who we first came across as a shining example of humanity after the eviction of the Free Hetherington Occupation at Glasgow Uni. He went on every TV outlet available to him (radio no big enough for good old Nels, straight to the top) saying there was no arrests on the day, no injuries and that the police response was entirely proportionate. That’ll be four arrests, one serious concussion, numerous bumps and bruises, 100 cops, the dog unit and our old pal the helicopter to you and me then.

Big Telf was again involved at Strathclyde the other day when he was the senior officer at another excellent show by his boys. What is not mentioned in LT’s article is the fact that the polis had a ’spotter’ on the demo. Someone who is paid to collate information on activists. We thought we’d do the honourable thing and show ye a wee picture of her. I fail to see the advantage of dressing your spotter to be the most noticeable person there but maybe I’m missing some elaborate plan from T-Unit.

2nd from left in case you were confused

It seems “T” NT wanted to stick his oar of incompetence into the Slutwalk this Saturday, barging in on a meeting with one of the organisers to intimidate and threaten her with conviction if the march was ‘highjacked’ and went off route. Even though the route was adhered to perfectly by the march, at least one organiser has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal for holding an illegal demonstration. This is unheard of despite numerous illegal marches taking place in Glasgowcity centre recently.

True to form they came to George Square with dozens of cops, two vans with Sauron style rotating cameras on top, four undercover CID, 6 horses, loads of motorbikes and… the helicopter. The same helicopter that we aren’t allowed to know how much it costs to put in the air because then the company they rent it off wouldn’t be able to rip-off businesses who want to rent it privately -- fair play on that one chaps.

This was an utterly ridiculous reaction and was no doubt an attempt to scare off the scores of angry young women who were on their first ever demonstration. Personally though the lowest part of the day was when they accosted me on the way to the shop near Glasgow green and took my details because I am ‘a potential witness to a crime.’ This is the second time in a week that an SSYer has been followed to the shops by the cops (lol rhymes) and had their details taken. It takes someone braver and more well versed in their legal rights than me to tell two CID heavies to get tae. You know shit is serious when you can’t toddle off for some Irn-Bru on a hot day.

Nelson Telfer is such a decent outstanding guy we thought he deserved his own wee slice of the internets:

Today saw around 200 mostly young people take to the streets of Glasgow against victim blaming and recent political discourse surrounding the issue of rape, as Slutwalk arrived in Scotland for the first time. The Slutwalk phenomenon began in April this year in Toronto, following remarks made by a senior police officer that women should ‘avoid dressing like sluts’ in order not to be sexually harassed or assaulted. The movement rapidly went global, as women across the world began organising marches both in solidarity with those in Canada, and against a culture of victim blaming which is far from a problem confined to one police officer or one city.

Organised largely via facebook, the march gathered in George Square and took a route to Glasgow Green. Unfortunately, the police had denied the organisers their planned route through the city centre, but given the short notice at which the march had been organised, it was felt necessary to go along with the police’s instructions.

Despite this minor hiccup, the march was a great success, attracting a huge amount of media attention and providing a vital reminder that – as the chant rang out – however we dress, wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no.

Slutwalk is the result of women fighting back against the idea that what you wear will determine whether or not you are raped.

It all started with Toronto Police’s lecture to women, saying that “…women should avoid dressing like sluts” to prevent being raped. Women of Toronto fought back by organising a protest which they named “Slutwalk” as a hit-back to say that it doesn’t matter what you wear – if a man is going to rape you, he will do it regardless of your attire.

The concept is multifaceted and has cause a disturbance with feminists and non-feminists alike with the idea that we are to reclaim the word “slut” in order to take it’s power away as a slur on women. I’m going to discuss fully why I think this is a good and feminist idea, and healthy debate is welcome in the comments. (Misogyny will just be deleted though. So no stupit folk, plx)

Toronto's Slutwalk

Okay. What’s the deal with the event? The even itself is a march. It’s purpose is to all say the same thing, which is to reject the idea that a woman can bring rape upon herself. Particularly through means of the way she dresses, which is one of the most common scapegoats for why rape happens.
Slutwalk aims to bring attention to the fact that men rape because they want power. Sexuality and attraction does not even come into it. A man will rape whomever he feels he needs to teach a lesson to or beat down. It is a tool of war and abuse and should be seen as nothing less.

To call a woman a slut is to imply that she should be ashamed of her sexual behaviour. Why is this an issue to anyone other than her? The simple fact of the matter is that it is not. A woman should be free to have sex with whomever she chooses and not be judged for it. It is a product of nation-wide misogyny that a woman should be “Slut-Shamed” for enjoying sex and having it when she likes. Sex is not a bad thing, and it’s just a way of keeping us miserable that it should ever be deemed a bad thing. But the freedom in it should be choice. Not doing it only a certain way, or with certain numbers or certain people. Slut, and all it’s variations (Whore, ho, cow, slapper, tart…) are words that have been put into play to beat women down. To put a woman lower than all the other woman. Everyone knows that the best way to oppress a group is to make lots of in-fighting happen. Women call other women these names because they have been told to, as a mechanism for creating levels of shamefulness and hatred.

We as women need to see that if you are called a slut, it is because you are a woman who is not living up to the male expectation of how you should live your life. Slutwalk aims to bring women together to say that if someone calls a woman a slut, they are calling all women sluts.

This brings me seamlessly onto the concept that’s got everyone talking – reclaiming the word ’slut’. History has shown success in oppressed groups taking words back off the privileged and robbing them of their power. Black people in America were branded with the word “Nigger” as a way to dehumanise people, and thus making it much easier in people’s minds to treat them less than human. The same goes for the word “slut”. If a woman is thought to be less than a human, someone who makes bad decisions and deliberately puts herself in harm’s way, it makes it easier for people to accept that someone has raped her and that she somehow brought it on herself and to treat her badly.
However, Black Americans took back the word “nigger” and began to use in in their own way, as a word to refer to a peer and thus disabling in in it’s use against them.
The same goes for examples such as the word “queer”, while it’s still early days and there’s a huge amount of work still to be put itno LGBT issues and gay rights, the word “queer” has it’s own meaning within the LGBT community. People use it to in a sense, non-describe their sexuality, to say that they do not conform to straight ideas of a “normal” gender binary.

A lot of people have raised issues about the word “slut” being reclaimed, and this is not to be taken lightly or disregarded. Women have been harmed by this word, their lives destroyed and their reputations been stomped into the gutter by vindictiveness about their sexuality. That is an issue to be respected. However, the reclamation of the word does not mean that we’ll simply use it in the same way, to describe promiscuity or even immediately start using it. The de-powering process is long and will take a lot of work from people who care about women’s rights and want to stand up for those who are oppressed. The starting point for this reclamation can in fact be, the simple act of protesting in Slutwalk. Showing that women cannot be singled out as being shameful, if one of us is a slut, then we sick together and all take the insult.

Another point made by Slutwalk is that what the Toronto Police Force say and what the opinion of the sexist majority think about rape – it happens late at night in dark alleys. This is a huge misconception. These things do happen, but rape is overwhelmingly happening in people’s families and homes. The statistics show that around 80% of cases are by someone the victim knew well, such as a friend, family member or partner. It is important to highlight this fact and stop dwelling on the idea that rape is something that happens to someone, comitted by a bogey man and start looking up to the reality that men rape. These men are husbands, sons, brothers, uncles, friends, grandfathers etc. Rape is committed by men who want to over power women. The reason that the media portrays rape as a bogey-man is that people raped by men close to them will be less likely to report it for many complicated reasons, and this must be respected.

If you agree with what Slutwalk aims to do, then find out if there is one near you and step up to protest the continuing abuse and oppression of women everywhere. Slutwalk Glasgow will be happening on the 4th of June, from 1pm to 4pm hopefully starting at George Square. Bigger numbers mean louder voices, and we need all the noise we can get to uproot this deep seated hatred of women.

Some of this info may be duplicating what you already know from Liam T’s recent post (his 100th on this blog btw!) but I reckon this is a story worth telling several times, kinda like how the Bible has like 4 Gospels or something.

A better edit of this article will appear in the next issue of Scottish Socialist Voice.

Tuesday 22nd March was a day that will be remebered for sensational events at Glasgow University. Dozens of Police and security guards swooped on the Free Hetherington, in an attempt to clear students out of their 50-day occupation of the disused Research Club building. Following eviction, protesters went on to occupy the luxurious Senate building. Astonishingly, this resulted in a late-night capitulation from management, with an invitation for us to return to the Hetherington in exchange for vacating the Senate.

The day began with an unexpected visit from campus security, who told occupiers to leave immediately. When this was refused, the cops were called in. Simultaneously, solidarity appeals went out via text message, facebook and twitter, with around 700 Hetherington supporters rushing to the scene. In an operation widely denounced as “excessive” and “heavy-handed”, over 80 police officers, equipped with 18 cars, a dog-handling unit and a helicopter (…yes, really!) were drafted in to back up zealous uni guards in the operation.

What followed was an illegal forced eviction of a peaceful sit-in, resulting in a number of instances of injury and arrest of non-violent protesters. Several people ended up with dislocations and sprains of shoulders and wrists. I am bruised all over my chest, shoulder and neck after being knelt on and assaulted by two members of the security team. One woman was pushed into a wall, causing concussion, then arrested and charged.

Undeterred by this show of force, hundreds of activists responded by marching to the university’s iconic main building, before occupying a number of rooms in the Senate. This space is absolutely vital to the uni administration, so the new occupation represented a significant escalation. As a result of our determination and audacity, we had gone from being down and defeated to being in a position of huge strength, all in the space of a few hectic minutes. The Herald sensationalised about “angry students” who “ran rampage…laying siege to the institution…[in] scenes of anarchy unprecedented in its 560-year history”. They were exaggerating, but not that much.

The next few hours saw the students getting back to normal occupation routine, in extraordinary circumstances. There were political discussions, organising meetings, a folk gig. The Senior Management Group (SMG) visited for a grilling, which was novel since they hadn’t spoken to us for 7 weeks. Refusing to condemn the day’s violence or to admit any wrongdoing, they made us an offer we could refuse – leave the Senate and you can get a meeting with uni principal Anton Muscatelli. After a vote, their offer was politely declined.

The plushness of our new pad was remarkable. It was all chandeliers, wood-panelled walls, ancient mahogany furniture, massive portraits of old principals (including the villainous Sir Muir Russell) and one of those TVs that emerges from a cabinet when you press a special button. It seems unnecessary to have such grandeur in an institution supposedly dedicated to learning. This made me think – no wonder our leaders are so out-of-touch, if they spend their lives in rooms such as this. Susan Stewart, the Director of Corporate Communications, seemed to be on the point of a nervous breakdown when a load of folk were moving their obviously-expensive chairs from one room to another.

Back home at the Free HRC

Thanks is due to American singer David Rovics, who was in Glasgow to play a benefit gig for Gaza. He popped in to lift our spirits with a range of brilliant songs. Highlights were songs about the Tunisian Revolution, the St Patrick’s Battalion of Irish-American mutineers, and the hilarious piss-take “I’m A Bigger Anarchist Than You”. He moved out onto the balcony, to belt out the Internationale for comrades unable to gain entry. We also learned a song which can get you gaoled in America, as it describes torching a Walmart. I will never forget chanting “burn it down” into the night sky while looking across the city. No wonder security wanted us out.

And so they gave us back the Hetherington! The building at 13 University Gardens was gifted to the university in the 1950s to be used as a student social space, but closed last year, amid accusations of mismanagement and allegations that senior university officials had allowed it to close as part of their £20million cuts package. Aware of the special regard many people held the old club in, and keen to establish an anti-cuts hub for Glasgow, a diverse alliance  - students, workers and unemployed -- reclaimed the disused but not-yet-derelict building on 1^st February, giving it new life as a non-commercial centre for education and discussion. Several well-ken’t faces have visited, including Liz Lochead, Mark Steel and Tom Leonard. It has attracted solidarity from across the world.

Looking to the future, we have an opportunity to shape a radical space of our own. Uni management have invited us to carry on as we were, apparently backtracking on plans to redevelop the place into offices and labs. There has been an assurance that there will never be a repeat of scenes of mass numbers of police interfering with our business. And so we invite everyone to make use of the Free Hetherington for politics, culture and free cups of tea.

Plenty remains to campaign on. The SMG’s austerity program will be resisted. Staff are openly in revolt, calling for the resignation of Muscatelli and the rest of senior management. We are with the workers on that. Student president-elect Stuart Richie has attracted ire for suggesting that police should have used teargas and that the Free Hetherington should be burned down. Calls are now ringing out for his path to office to be blocked. Of course, bad behaviour from posh right-wing students is nothing new – a few weeks ago pissed-up members of the elitist GUU ran naked into the building, harassing other students and setting off the fire alarm. We’ve been informed Private Eye are storing the pictoral evidence, to be published when the intruders become powerful bankers/politicians/company directors. SSP co-spokesperson Frances Curran was quoted in news outlets demanding information on the cost of the operation, and employees have called for an independent inquiry.

Our support must go to those students who are now facing criminal charges. The concussed individual was visited by Strathclyde’s finest the following morning, who cuffed her after watching her dress, before realising they’d made a mistake and were looking for someone else. Two others who had been arrested on the day, then de-arrested by a senior cop, were re-arrested the following morning. The movement must support these individuals and call for the vindictive and unjustified charges to be dropped.

Returning to the Free Hetherington on Tuesday night, everyone was elated after a great victory, and ready to get back on with the task of resisting the cuts everywhere. We can move forward, secure in this great asset.

The occupied senate building

**EDIT** As of last night, the Hetherington occupation is back on as senior management offered us back the building in exchange for giving them back their beloved senate headquarters! This rendered the whole police and security operation yesterday entirely useless! As of this morning, people are being targetted by the police and re-arrested, information here **END OF EDIT**

At 10.30 this morning, university security entered the Free Hetherington at Glasgow University, just two hours before it celebrated its 7 week anniversary of being in occupation. What should’ve been a quiet morning at the space – with students and staff dropping in for cups of tea, coffee and lunch between lectures – rapidly turned into a mass confrontation between security, the police and hundreds of students and supporters,  as plans to evict the occupation became clear.

Entering the building under false pretences of  a health and safety check-up (as they’ve been allowed to before, given that relations with campus security have generally been very positive up until today), more security quickly entered and police back-up was called in, with a helicopter scrambled to the scene. As more students began to arrive to show support, the front  steps were taken – with the police then resorting to handcuffing students in an attempt to remove them from the doorway. More supporters and onlookers continued to arrive, as did the police – in the end over 80 officers and 20 vehicles attended, alongside the constantly circling helicopter.

With just a handful of occupiers in the building at the time, people on the outside made an attempt to gain access through a fire exit from an adjacent building. They were stopped by uni security, who assaulted a number of students – including one who later had to leave in an ambulance after suffering concussion from a head injury. The police then intervened and arrested a number of people. However, with hundreds now gathered outside, they refused to let anyone leave the building and those arrested were held inside, including the person suffering concussion. This also had the effect of holding entire classes of students hostage, as well as those in offices and computer labs.

Around 1pm, the police entered the Free Hetherington in numbers and dragged the remaining occupiers out by force. Hundreds remained outside, with the stand-off next door, at 11 University Gardens, continuing. This came to an end around an hour later – with those who’d been arrested, with the exception of the person who had already left in an ambulance, now being told that they were apparently not arrested after all! Clearly the police were trying to diffuse an increasingly volatile situation.

Both this, and the eviction in general, spectacularly backfired. Students and supporters outside the Free Hetherington then blocked the road, preventing two police vans from  passing by. To chants of ‘who’s kettled now?’, two police vans were forced to reverse out of University Gardens. Around 300 students then broke off and marched to the university main building.  From here, the doors to uni’s head offices were broken down and several of the key rooms at the uni – including the Senate – occupied. This is currently ongoing, with freedom of access.

Glasgow University is at the forefront of a battle over the future of education. Management have consistently ignored the university’s own democratic bodies, including the Senate, pressing ahead with their corporate, business-oriented vision of what education should be. Principal Muscatelli and his senior management team must go. The battle continues.