This Friday, 24 November, various schools and universities will be walking out for Palestine. Get in touch if you want to help organise action wherever you are!
By the time of the walkout, Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza will have been ongoing for six weeks. Over this period, untold horror has been released on the Palestinian people, with the full complicity of US and British imperialism.
Alongside this living nightmare, we have also seen a monumental movement of millions around the world, with workers and youth taking to the streets to show solidarity with Palestine; to demand an end to the slaughter and occupation; and to condemn the role of ‘our own’ ruling class in the devastation being meted out on ordinary Palestinians.
Now the movement is escalating beyond demos and protests. Already, there have been a number of walkouts at schools and universities across Britain. And Friday 24 November is set to see more joining the struggle.
As part of this movement, communist activists with the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) have helped organise walkouts at the below locations. Our comrades have organised these around the following demands:
- Condemn imperialism – support Palestine!
- Cut ties with complicit companies!
- Support pro-Palestinian students and staff organising solidarity! End repression!
If you agree with these demands and want to be a part of this movement of walkouts, or if you want support from our activists in organising action at your school or university, then fill out this form and read the political advice below.
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Walkouts
Schools:
Halifax (get in touch for more details)
Cambridge (get in touch for more details)
Universities:
Cardiff – meet outside Centre for Student Life, 2:30pm
Lancaster – (Thursday 23 November) meet at Alex Square, 12pm
Cambridge – meet on King’s Parade, 12pm
Leeds – meet at Parkinson Steps, 1:30pm
Read the reports below to see how our comrades have been building for these walkouts.
Tips
- Get in touch with IMT comrades in your area for help.
- Speak to your friends and those around you, and form an organising committee for the walkout.
- Discuss the above political demands, and how they apply to your school or university.
- Come up with a suitable place and time for the walkout, where you think there could be maximum participation.
- Reach out to sympathetic teachers or staff. Contact trade union representatives at your school or university (or staff you recognise from picket lines), and ask for support and solidarity from them and their union branch.
- Spread the word using flyers, posters, social media, stalls, classroom / lecture shoutouts, door-knocking, and word of mouth. Keep designs simple and to the point.
- Prepare slogans that can be used throughout the action, and political speeches for the beginning and end of the walkout, based on our material here or on the videos in the reports below.
Resources
- Template flyer for a school student walkout
- Slogans:
- Intifada til victory! Revolution til victory!
- There is only one solution: Intifada! Revolution!
- From the West bank, to Gaza, we need an intifada!
- The UK is not innocent! The Tories are not innocent!
- Joe Biden / Rishi Sunak / Keir Starmer / Netanyahu: Blood on your hands!
- Free, free Palestine! Viva, viva, Palestina!
- 1,2,3,4 – Occupation no more! 5,6,7,8 – Israel is a terrorist state!
Reports
Leeds
The Leeds comrades have begun campaigning for the walkout. At 1.30pm on 24 November, students from the three major universities in the city are encouraged to leave their classes and lectures, in support of the Palestinian people.
We will also be protesting the repression of pro-Palestine voices on campus, and the universities’ complicity in the support of the Israeli war machine.
Leeds Beckett University is particularly reproachable: conducting research for BAE systems; and maintaining financial partnerships worth over £180 million with Lloyds Bank, who in turn provide billions in loans for arms companies such as BAE, Rolls Royce, and Lockheed Martin, to name a few. We demand this university cuts ties with all companies complicit in the oppression of Palestinians!
Furthermore, the Marxist society at Leeds Beckett has been deregistered due to the use of our slogan ‘intifada until victory’. This is a violation of democratic freedoms on campus. Staff and students should have the right to free speech, without repression.
It is for these reasons that we are planning to march from the Parkinson Library steps at Leeds University to Leeds Beckett.
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Lancaster
In Lancaster, comrades are enthusiastically building for a walkout for a free Palestine on 23 November. At this walkout we will raise the three demands outlined above, and we will present these demands to Lancaster University senior management. Furthermore, we are involving UCU and Unite members, with the aim of passing motions in these unions’ branches on campus.
We will follow this up with a teach-out on 27 November on the history of Israel-Palestine. The purpose of this is to clarify the role of British imperialism in the founding of the Israeli state.
We are building for this event with a coalition of students on campus, and have designed an agitational poster with our demands to the university. This will be distributed across the student body as widely as possible, at lectures and seminars, but also through the UCU and Unite.
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Cardiff
The Marxist Society at Cardiff University recently put forward a motion to the student union AGM calling on the SU to support the oppressed Palestinian people, and to come out against Israeli and western imperialism. This motion was bureaucratically blocked by SU, however, who claimed that it was in breach of the Equalities Act of 2010 – but they never explained how or why this is the case.
At the same time, the university has allowed Natasha Asghar – a Tory MP who voted against a ceasefire – to speak at a Politics Society event. This led to a demonstration of students outside the meeting. Amongst the attendees at this protest, there was a strong mood that the university is not doing enough. And there was a lot of anger towards the British state and its role in this conflict.
Due to all of this, we are calling a walkout on 24 November to put pressure on the university and the SU. Our specific demands are to end the repression of pro-Palestinian lecturers and students, here and elsewhere, and for Cardiff University to condemn British imperialism’s role in oppressing the Palestinian people.
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Cambridge
Cambridge Communists have led the charge in calling for student walkouts at both of the city’s universities. We are building for this by leafleting in the town and outside university buildings, by postering, and through social media.
Comrades have been on campus spreading the word, selling our paper, and calling on students to join the Communists in the fight for a free Palestine.
The student union at Cambridge University and local Zionist groups have come out attacking our comrades for our firmly pro-Palestine position. This includes reporting our members to the right-wing press.
Far from deterring us, however, we have simply incorporated these attacks into our campaign message: the SU won’t stand up for Palestine, so we will do it ourselves.
The momentum is building. We’re shutting down campus.
