We must focus on peaceful protests and engaging with politicians ? not on the violent tactics of a hard-left minority
A couple of pieces on Comment is free over recent weeks have suggested that the National Union of Students no longer represents the views and wishes of students, and that NUS has been inactive since calling what is still the largest student demonstration for a generation.
While I am certain that those who wrote the pieces care passionately about these issues, they represent few people other than themselves and I feel it is important to respond to the misinformation that has nonetheless been taken as fact by some.
Far from being inactive, the NUS has continued to lead the movement that was spurred into action by the government's vicious attacks on young people in general and, more specifically, our education. Following the march on 10 November, which we organised and for which we mobilised 50,000 students, the biggest protest in the UK since those against the Iraq war, we called a series of days of campus actions and two lobbies of parliament, in which hundreds of students met their elected representatives and won us even more backing in crucial votes.
In the latest, and certainly not last, NUS-organised street protest, thousands of people from across the progressive movement will be on the streets of Manchester on Saturday demonstrating against the government's cuts agenda and its impact on young people. This has widened our collaboration with other unions and will see us standing shoulder to shoulder with TUC, Unite, UCU, FBU, NUT and many others.
I have always said that where action is supported by students' unions and where adequate arrangements are made for the safety of those involved that I will back that action. I do not believe this to be the case with the action planned for London on the same day and as such will not undertake to encourage our members to attend. I won't criticise those that protest peacefully and of course I support their solidarity with the wider cause. I will not, however, risk our representative role and reputation to appease an unrepresentative, self-aggrandising minority, in pursuit of their own fringe agendas, which lack wider student and public support.
It is vital that we engage with the process, that students and those who represent them make the intellectual arguments for our cause. I believe we are right when we say that investment in higher education will drive our economic recovery and that cutting that investment and loading young people with debt risks consigning a generation to the scrapheap and will lead to economic stagnation. Modern politics will not be swayed by street protest alone and that is why I am prepared to engage with Simon Hughes in his new role as the government's "access advocate".
There can be no excusing the fact that he badly let down so many young people by abstaining in the tuition vote, and then voting with the government to abolish the education maintenance allowance. However, I have set out a number of key areas where Hughes would do well to start repairing the coalition's damaged reputation: ensuring there is a comprehensive package of support for the poorest students in college, making the case for the Aimhigher programme, helping to construct a National Scholarship Programme and making the case to the Treasury for the reinstatement of the Future Jobs Fund.
I have a responsibility to the millions of students I represent not to let my own personal anger, at their betrayal by coalition politicians, stand in the way of working towards future successes for those students. I have not changed my views about the rise in tuition fees, I will retain my opposition to them, but fees of �9,000 look set to be a reality for many future students and a stubborn, principled resistance to engagement will mean that we are hostages to even higher bills and even fewer rights ? we have to play the hand we are dealt and it would be remiss not to fight to ensure the best protection possible for students in the real world. The NUS exists to defend, extend and promote students' rights, not to gamble them away.
A handful of students' unions ? less than 1% of the more than 650 students' unions in the UK ? have passed votes of no-confidence in my leadership. I have listened to their criticisms and taken them on board but I strongly believe that those involved, pushed by outside forces on the hard-left of the political spectrum, are not representative of the student movement in general. Some believe the NUS has not been radical enough, that we are wrong to criticise those whose violence distracted from political betrayal and lost us public support when we needed it most ? I stand firmly by my position.
Those who rail against me believe that we should devote our entire resource to organising street protests, while others believe we have been too radical, that we should not have been involved in any protests, or even that we should have backed the rise in tuition fees. I do not believe anything I could do would appease either of these groups. The vast majority, including myself, believe a moderate approach that engages with political realities while showing our dissent and energising through direct action is the way forward.
I know that those who wish to push more of the burden of economic recovery on to the young and the vulnerable will be delighted to read these words, deliriously happy that at a time when I should be talking about the wider issues that affect young people ? record youth unemployment, the shrinking of the disability living allowance, the hundreds of thousands that will miss out on university places this year ? I am instead speaking to those whose misdirected energy and anger seeks to split our movement.
I would rather, and will continue to, discuss the growing breadth of our support for and solidarity with the wider anti-cuts movement and encourage anyone who believes the government is cutting too hard and too fast to join us in Manchester on Saturday or to safely and peacefully show our campaign has moved beyond London. Our generation faces a hostile future and if we respond to deceitful politicians and a hysterical media with discord and disunity, we will let ourselves, and the generations to come, down.
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