Press release for immediate use 26/7/2011
Student activists confused by call for separate student demonstration 4 days after demonstration united with young workers and unemployed
Youth Fight for Jobs Jarrow marchers call for one combined demonstration on 5th November
Youth Fight for Jobs are recreating the Jarrow March on the 75th anniversary, and are bringing together students, unemployed workers, trade union members and activists in a demonstration on Saturday 5 November, assembling at Embankment at 11am. The campaign was confused by yesterdays call by the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) to organise a separate demonstration on 9 November.
Leeds University Against the Cuts (LUAC) press spokesperson Ian Pattison said “I am confused as to why this call has been made. The march on 5 November has been publicly announced for 5 months and has received coverage in the Guardian and Independent. I announced this at the NUS conference and proposed that all student anti-cuts groups work together to build a united resistance to all the cuts, and campaign for a future for all young people, against the governments brutal measures. The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts backed this march at its recent conference. I am confused as to why yesterdays announcement to split the resistance was made without any consultation with student anti-cuts activists such as myself.”
Ben Robinson, Chair of Youth Fight for Jobs, said “The recreation of the Jarrow march has the backing of 6 national trade unions, Unite, PCS, RMT, Bectu, TSSA, FBU and UCU. It also has the support of many student anti-cuts groups and individuals up and down the country who are marching, offering us accommodation, helping to organise the protest and so forth. Many of our members played leading roles in the student anti-fees protests. We hope that the NCAFC and EAN do not try to divide the resistance. We hope that we can get together and discuss with representatives from those groups so that we have one demonstration on 5 November that all activists can build for at the start of the new term.”
Youth Fight for Jobs is a campaigning organisation launched in response to the government trying to punish young people for the recession in early 2009. We have the backing of the PCS, UCU, RMT, CWU, UNITE, TSSA and BECTU trade unions.
ENDS
For more info contact or phone 020 8558 7947
We can arrange interviews
*corrected at 4:10pm to remove EAN support for the demonstration on 9 November.
How many people do you anticipate marching from Jarrow? Will it be 30,000 like the December 9th demo organised by the London Student Assembly, EAN and NCAFC?
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how many people you get on a demonstration is a political question, and depends on the mood, issues of the time etc. Last November the anger building up amongst students (and others) boiled up and came out onto the streets in a fantastic show of opposition to the government. Will it again? Thats something that we all have to campaign for as much as possible, but its not automatic. The Arab spring happened because of the masses felt that they had had enough of the conditions that they faced, rather than because someone produced a particularly good leaflet.
We’re aiming, as we’ve said elsewhere, to have 50 people on the Jarrow March at any one time, but alongside that big public protests at various points along the demonstration. The issue is that, wouldn’t it be better to have one demonstration of 30,000 rather than two demos of 15,000? I think that this is an entirely avoidable situation and one that Youth Fight for Jobs is doing its best to remedy.
That has always been our policy. On 9 December, the day of the tuition fees vote, Youth Fight for Jobs took part in the London Student Assemblies (LSA) to plan for it, had two members of the LSA organising committee together with reps from EAN and NCAFC, provided stewards and played an important role in mobilising for it. We would be very happy to work towards a similar system to build one demonstration on 5 November and are already working alongside the RMT in London and others to build for 5 November. Incidentally we argued, against members of EAN and NCAFC, in favour of continuing the LSA meetings as a democratic forum to bring together student anti-cuts activists.
The reason why 9 December 10 was so big was because it was the day of the tuition fees vote in Parliament. I can’t see a similar pressing reason to hold a student demonstration on 9 November 11, especially when it comes only 4 days after another demo bringing together workers, unemployed and students which activists have been campaigning for for months.
The SP had little to no role in coordinating action last year. With these kinds of posts they risk alienating students from otherwise attending the demo planned for the 5th. Agreed that LSA was fantastic and no doubt it will be restored soon enough – however that is insufficient for a national movement – those in N. Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Midlands and North wish to be represented too.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘these kind of posts’? We’re expressing the disapointment that I’m sure a lot of students feel that there has been announced a second demonstration 5 days after the first, and are working towards a resolution and would be keen to discuss with representatives of NCAFC.
I’m not sure what you’re basing your estimation of Youth fight for Jobs’ role in the student movement on (I’m a member of YFJ and the Socialist Party, YFJ is significantly broader than SP). YFJ were the only people to print huge quantities of full-colour leaflets on the NUS demo on 10 November calling for walkouts on 24 November when 100k + demonstrated locally, led many, took part in and fully supported other protests, local student anti-cuts groups including the LSA, as well as the 9 December stuff mentioned above.
Agreed that some kind of national student anti-cuts movement is neccessary, its clear that NUS isn’t going to play that role without pressure and we need something to coordinate in the meantime, and to apply that pressure! Its absence is part of the reason why this current situation has arisen.
all this criticism is coming from London based activists involved in one Trotskyite party or another, each upset that their group have not been “consulted”. This is the crux of the matter for too long the student “left” has been organised undemocratically, activists in London have been calling the shots. This is not a criticism of some brilliant activists and activism in London who did a excellent job last year but, in terms of representing the national movement it didn’t work and did cause some major problems.
While Trotskyite parties attack The National campaign against fees and cuts for not “consulting” them, I would say this national demo has been “well” consulted with activists from all across the UK. It was far from ideal but, we got people from all corners. Most local anti cuts groups attended and NCAFC paid for people who could not afford to travel themselves largely out of other activists own pockets to a national conference in Birmingham with 100 people in attendance. This conference called for a national demo and elected a national comittee mostly of independants from accross the UK to make sure it happens.
The problem seems to be as NCAFC builds national democratic structures the people and groups traditionally at the heart of decision making in London feel they have had less opportunity to take part, which is clearly true… but, then again the rest of us have felt like that for years!
The new committee is geographically not London centric with members from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Liverpool, Birmingham and London. The majority on the activists on the NCAFC national committee are like myself non-affiliated to any party or group, so again the London based parties find themselves with less influence than before over the NCAFC.
While some people might be upset at this change, we can’t go back to decisions being made by “consultation” (deals behind closed doors) between undemocratic Trotskyite groups in London. The selection process for the “united left slate” for the NUS last year was a disaster. It was bashed together behind closed doors in an undemocratic fashion and then announced to the world. Furthermore, the slate was unrepresentative of the movement being composed almost entirely of students from Trotskyite parties in London. If people are going to trust the left we can’t make decisions in this way and we can’t select the NUS united left slate in this way ever again. The process of calling this national demo was not perfect but it has been organised in open national meetings with students from all across the UK.
The lack of democracy on the left is a constant problem but, NCAFC is on the path to addressing this. It is building a national democratic structures and it is meeting and making decisions openly. The people I have Tagged in this post are the national comittee feel free to contact them. Althrough they will be gone in few months after new elections at another national convention.
We need a grassroots movemeant that can make decisions on a national level. I believe a democratic movement against fees, against cuts, fighting for jobs, fighting to bring back EMA and stopping the privatisation could go a lot further than a undemocratic one. Not only a lot further than the movement last year but, further than the student movement has gone for a long time.
The National campaign against fees and cuts is reaching out to all local groups and individuals building for next year. The national demo is only a part of a many actions that many groups have planed. Actions including direct action, occupations & demonstrations we are going to need it all! Because, public funding is disappearing across the board, universities are being thrown into a market which gives a perverse incentive to make cheap and nasty courses for the poorest students creating a true social divide in higher education. Many universities will collapse, many courses will be lost and some universities will privatise themselves probably raising fees far above the £9000 cap.
We must be confident in our own ability to organise and build a movement because, if the NUS won’t then we don’t have choice but to build it ourselves. Only a democratic group that is not a front for a party can do this as students won’t trust any organization that is not fully democratic and open.
I do think that you’ve put your finger on the problem at root here, which is that there is no national student coordination, and unfortunately, since the demise of the London Student Assembly (as argued for by members of NCAFC against YFJ members and others) not in London either. Its clear that we have to work towards something like that and opportunities have been missed.
I’m both a member of the Socialist Party and Youth Fight for Jobs; but I don’t think you can claim that the two are synonymous (much like your objection to AWL / Workers Power and NCAFC being identified as the same organisation). And as to London-centric, as an example I think that the conference you mentioned above had YFJ reps from Northern Ireland, Warwick, Cardiff and Birmingham unis and our press release includes a quote from the Leeds Uni Against Cuts press spokesperson so I’m not really sure that’s relevant to us.
But you don’t really in the above deal with the key question, which is how can we build the biggest unified demonstration against education cuts, privatisation etc. Its just not possible to build 2 big demos in 5 days. A huge amount of campaigning has already gone into 5 November and it has been publicised for months, including winning support at the NCAFC conf above. I think that the problem re NUS Scotland conference is a real one, but not insurmountable; if enough pressure is applied then SUs can still be forced to book transport and our members in Scotland are working towards this. As to people directly involved, I’m not sure about NUS Scotland but I think NUS Wales is about 75ish? So it wouldn’t take out many from what you’re saying.
sorry, meant to say that I’m very happy to discuss with yourself and others as individuals or as the steering committee either face to face or on the phone; contact yfj using the usual details above.
I back the day being on the 5th but this is largely irrelevant.
The problem is is your claim that NCAFC is another “front” lets clear this up; it is not, it is a democratically run and has an elected committee which meets openly. Furthermore on this committee independents are the majority but, lots of other groups and views are represented. Youth Fight for Jobs cannot claim this, nor can socialist students. Your activists where at the national conference when we decided all this they did not propose that these two days where merged into one, they also voted for NCAFC to call a national demonstration, this has know been done.
You have been arguing for us to go back to decisions being made in London between uncountable groups, I think we can both agree now this is not the best way forward. We can talk about moving the date at the next NCAFC national meeting and like last time I will, back calls for the 5th.
However, the NCAFC can only make these decisions through its democratic structure in which YFJ has participated. The call for the 9th was the opposite of sectarianism it was democracy in action, albeit a fledgling national structure. Public attacks and accusations of being front groups for the AWL or WP from factions with no national democratic structures to have the day moved to support their event are not helpful to what we all want which is building a national democratic movemeant.
you should come along to the next meeting, if you can’t afford it NCAFC will pay.
As an individual or when writing for Youth Fight for Jobs i can’t remember ever stating that NCAFC is a front. I have also never argued for decisions to be made by ‘unaccountable groups’. However, both NCAFC and YFJ have conferences and elect steering committees to do the work in conjunction with members in between conferences. My understanding is that 9 November was not named at the conference and that not all NCAFC steering committee members knew it had been confirmed before the campaign went public. Should we meet up and discuss this and try and reach an agreement? Yes definitely, the sooner the better in my opinion.
Youth Fight for Jobs is not London-Centric. The steering committee is made up from regional organiser + a few representatives from every region. It also has 3 delegates from each supporting trade union. We were the only organisation to argue for a speaker from outside London on the 9th December and we provided that speaker.
Did you know that the Spanish 15M movement, which has after marching from 6 points of Spain to Madrid for another huge gathering and Popular Assembly now set off for Brussels (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14302607 ) . The idea is to reach Brussels for a big demo before what has been called as a global day of action for real democracy on October15th. And then, after that the talk is of marching on London for 5th Nov (remember remember – apparently V for Vendetta is very popular in Spain!).
Seeing as the Spanish 15M started with precarious youth movements it would be great to join forces on that day, 5th Nov in central London! Please get in contact if you would like to send a message to the 15M marchers via the international commission and I will certainly pass it on.
What do people think ?
Love and Solidarity