A MASS of students over 2,000 strong rallied outside the University of London Students Union (ULU) on Wednesday, to protest the arrest of 41 students last week when police violently broke up a peaceful student demonstration outside Senate House.
After hearing speakers – from the leaders of the students union and from other Universities, workers on the campus who are in dispute, students threatened with expulsion from the University of Sussex, and the PCS trade union – the students headed once again for Senate House.
They chanted: ‘Police Off Campus! Police Off Campus!’ and ‘Whose Education? Our Education’.
On reaching Senate House, they burst through the locked gates to reach the site of last week’s arrest, but this time there was no security to stop them.
Addressing the rally, Michael Chessum, President of the University of London Students Union, said: ‘This is one of the biggest student protests we have seen since 2010.
‘We are here to say that we will not be intimidated.
‘What we are witnessing is an aggressive university management, not only here at the University of London, but also at the University of Sussex and Birmingham, and across the country.
‘We are witnessing University managements and a government who have no mandate to do what they are trying to do to education, to public services and to society. They are using the only argument which they have left.
‘That argument is the brute force of the police.
‘It is the violence of university security, it is the bureaucracy of court injunctions and it is the threat and the intimidation that we have faced over the last week.
‘Forty-one people were arrested last week. They were sent home with bail conditions, including that they cannot assemble in any public space in groups of more than four people.
‘These bastards are losing. In confronting them people are likely to get hurt and arrested, because we are up against a force that basically has no morals, and which is interested in protecting its own power and its own wealth.
‘What I have to say today is look after each other. If people get nicked, go and wait for them outside police stations.’
The student leader continued: ‘And remember that the political policing that we are experiencing on campus today is not just for students.
‘Students are merely the latest victims of this crime.
‘The police force is institutionally racist, violent and an organ of state power.
‘It’s not just “Cops off our campuses”, it’s “Cops Out of our Communities”.’
Daniel Cooper, ULU Vice-President, said: ‘We are going to hear today from three different campaigns, that have led to today’s struggle.
‘One is the outsourced staff at the University of London, who over the past year have been building the Three Crosses Campaign.
‘This campaign is fighting, for sick pay, holiday pay, and pensions.’
One of the outsourced workers involved in that campaign, Sonia Dura, said: ‘We, the outsourced workers, are here in mutual support for all of you in everything that has happened.
‘You have all my support from the outsourced workers.
‘We are going to continue to fight for the Three Crosses Campaign, for sick leave, holiday pay and pensions.
‘We have won something but that is not all. We are going to continue our campaign.
‘We are calling for your support and we announce our next strike which will be on the 27th, 28th and 29th of January.
‘We thank you for your support and are with you in your struggle.’
Jason Wright, a student, said: ‘The brutality that the police inflict on the students is indicative of the brutality that the police inflict on many sections of our community.’
Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary of PCS, brought solidarity from the union and said: ‘I want to commend you for linking up with the lecturers who are taking action, and for supporting the workers who are on the private contracts that the university authorities granted that involve super-exploitation, a failure to pay a living wage, and zero-hour contracts.
‘I hope other unions will join you in your actions to defend the right to protest against the attacks of the police, and the violence against peaceful protest because this is an attempt to prevent a serious fight against austerity.
‘I want to thank you again for your action. PCS will do what it can to bring practical support to your struggle.
‘We will take our case into every school, every college, every community and every work place to build the alliance to defeat this government and stop them making us pay the price for their capitalist economic crisis.
Adriano Merola Marotta, one of five University of Sussex students under threat of expulsion for occupying the campus Bramber House conference centre against privatisation, also addressed the rally.
‘Across campuses and across the UK, the student movement is fighting for our rights and against privatisation, to have a better society,’ said Marotta.
‘The lesson of my suspension and the suspension of four other students at my university is that solidarity is not just a word, that you tweet on twitter.
‘Solidarity is a weapon for the arrested students and against the brutality and aggression that we are seeing on university campuses.
‘Down with the millionaire managers. Down with the millionaire government!’
Amber Homes, President of the students union at the Institute of Education, said: ‘We have come in support of this demonstration, which is in response to the level of police brutality.
‘They have been kicking students off campus and throwing students over railings.
‘It is important to come out against police brutality to protect our civil rights.
‘With the cuts to education, cuts to the higher education sector and also in the primary and secondary sector, it’s really important that the students come out.
‘It’s also important to be working with the trade unions to campaign against the general cuts and privatisation of education at the moment
‘I’m in support of a general strike but we have to work towards it and bring the general public with us.
‘The National Union of students should be doing a lot more in organising against these cuts.’
Leah Edwards, SOAS Co-President of Student Welfare and Campaigns, said: ‘Austerity affects the most oppressed people in the worst way, and they are the ones who find it hardest to fight.
‘I think students are in a unique position, in that they have resources and time, and with the community spirit that we have we can kind of lead that fight against austerity.
‘It’s more than just one struggle. There are so many different struggles.
‘There is the NHS, there is housing, disabled benefits, Workfare – so it’s about trying to bring all those groups together and lead the way.
‘There have been calls for the National Union of Students to call a national demo, and I would back that.
‘I think they need to get behind it because they do have a lot of influence across the country. If they were to call a national strike, a lot more universities would get involved.
Philip Dunn, a University of London student from the north of Ireland, said: ‘I don’t know why the government and the university managers are doing this.
‘Are they just incompetent or are they trying to preserve the interest of what is a small group of people?
‘But the whole austerity budget kills growth. It’s quite a bad policy.
‘Some economists think the current economic policy is just going to give rise to fascist sentiment because of the negligence of politicians, and because it is a negative economic policy.
‘You need the unions, you need to fight power with power.’
Tom and Jason, also students at University of London, said: ‘When you have something that is really monumental like this protest, you really want to come out and participate in it.’
University protests were also reported to have taken place in Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Exeter, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Southampton, and Leeds.
