406 out of 4,230 voters in the Lancaster University Students’ Union election voted for a Revolutionary Communist candidate. That’s one in ten voters, and 3 percent of the total student population!
With the deep crisis of capitalism finding its way to Lancaster, the university has announced that they are axing 400 full-time equivalent staff over the next two years, and slashing departmental funding. Already, one third of all bars on campus have been closed.
We decided to respond to these attacks by running RCP comrade Adam Baguley for Student Union president, on a bold, uncompromising communist programme.
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Our first task was political training – ensuring all of our comrades and supporters understood why exactly we call for fighting the cuts, abolishing fees and rents, and pushing for a national campaign of students and workers.
We explained that our goal isn’t to just vote in some bureaucrat who’ll promise meagre reforms through negotiations. Rather, we aimed to get across the message that our demands are attainable – but we need to fight for them.
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Finding an echo
When we went out with our leaflets, those we talked to were on board with what we put forward.
A lot of what we said felt intuitive to many students, who felt as if they’ve been robbed of a proper education. I even saw one of my ‘non-political’ course friends explaining our programme to others in such a clear, casual manner after a five-minute conversation with us.
Even though we initially struggled with leafleting, we learnt what worked and what didn’t. We recognised that we couldn’t rely on sloganeering alone; we had to talk to people directly, and broaden our conversations out to deal with the crisis of capitalism as a whole. Throughout the week-long campaign, we refined our methods of reaching people and convincing them.
We tried different tactics to initiate conversations: from door-knocking to just walking up to people and asking what they thought. A lot of people rightfully felt unbothered by these elections, with some calling the student union “useless”.
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But after a brief talk, we were able to win over many of them on the basis of pushing for something further than just a mere vote.
On top of this, we used lecture shout-outs to reach even more people. We came in strong and confident, firmly laying out the facts about the finances at Lancaster, the crisis in higher education more generally, and our radical solutions.
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We were very explicit about the fact that we are communists. And we were successful. One comrade even entered a lecture hall with students laughing at the word “communism”, and left with a round of applause!
Building foundations
It was through this work that we were able to win over hundreds of students to a revolutionary communist position. A handful of these students are now interested in coming along to Communist Society events and joining the Party.
However, this is just a glimpse of what we can achieve. With universities going further into crisis, there’ll be a point where a lot more will be searching for answers. And we need to be there.
All this success was gained with just a dozen comrades. Imagine if there were dozens more of us on one campus! On these foundations, we’ll come back bolder and stronger.
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Cardiff RCP prepares for battle
Cardiff Communists
In Cardiff University, the RCP is running comrade Alice for SU president in the upcoming union elections.
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Our three core demands are:
- Kick capitalism off campus – end the marketisation and privatisation of education!
- No more cuts, open the books! If management says there is no money, then we say: prove it.
- Student and staff control of the university! It is students and staff that make the university run, so they should have control instead of fat-cat management.
And already, our social media launch has whipped up a storm of support (and vitriol), with one of our videos getting close to a million views – plus a hateful comment from show business has-been Sharon Osborne!
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Over the next two weeks, we will sharpen our tools in preparation for this campaign.
In the first week, we will mobilise the entire district to discuss the political reasons and aims for the campaign. Then we will set out our plan for how we will mobilise our forces during the election. In the second week we will finalise plans and practice agitational speeches.
We’ve built up a strong presence on campus, so we’ll continue to have 3-4 recruitment stalls a week in the run up to the campaign. This will give us the opportunity to talk to students, and to get them involved and coming along to the planning meetings.
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During the campaign, we’ll mobilise the district for activity every day. Through lecture shoutouts, speeches, stalls, leafleting – we will be everywhere! The measure of our success for this campaign won’t be how many votes we get, but how many new people join the party.
With that in mind, every evening we’ll have a meeting that party sympathisers can attend – not just to get them involved in the campaign, but to join the RCP as well. And with staff balloting for strike action, this campaign could cement our ability to lead a student strike in the coming period.
Newcastle UCU begins the fightback against cuts
Ben Davies, Newcastle
Newcastle RCP have been supporting the strikes at Newcastle University, attending the picket lines, rallies, and student-staff solidarity meetings.
In response to the threat of 300 redundancies, Newcastle University UCU committed to a month of strikes. The first day of action saw about 100 supporters mobilise on the picket line.
The atmosphere was militant. Speakers did not just demand an end to the looming threat of redundancies, but appealed to kick profit out of education altogether.
A students’ union poll found that students support the strikes, with 67 percent of respondents expressing support. And students’ anger towards university bosses was clearly on display at the rally. Touchy talking points included the university’s decision to invest in a new campus in India and vice-chancellor Chris Day’s £475,000 salary.
We spoke to students and workers about the attacks that are sweeping across the higher education sector. Many echoed that quality education is being sacrificed to make the university a quick buck and attract profit-seeking investors.
The UCU has planned a month of escalating action. The campaign has started strong. We must fight to keep support high on the picket lines.
To spread the movement, and connect with wider layers of students and workers, a strategy to win is necessary.
The cuts are an existential threat to all universities. It is therefore imperative to broaden out the strike nationally, across the higher education sector.
A storm of austerity is being prepared for the public sector. We say: make the billionaires pay!
Higher education gold rush
Alex Falconer, Cardiff
Universities are on the brink of financial collapse. With a predicted drop in income of £3.4bn in the 2025/26 academic year, universities are planning to slash jobs and courses at home.
So now would be a great time to gamble on opening campuses overseas, right?
In India, laws on foreign universities opening campuses were recently relaxed. With applications for UK study visas dropping by 17 percent last year, tapping into a market of 43 million university students – and growing – is clearly too good an opportunity to resist.
First out of the gates is the University of Southampton. Despite a spate of redundancies in 2018, they’ll be charging £12,000 a year to be taught business management.
Newcastle University vice-chancellor Chris Day can’t wait to join them. He said he’s “absolutely convinced” of the need to open a university in India. His university currently has a £35 million shortfall and is planning 300 redundancies.
The University of Surrey is also opening a campus in Ahmedabad’s Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City: a special economic zone that offers tax exemptions and profit repatriation for high-ranking foreign universities. This will be very helpful, as they are also looking to plug a £10 million gap in their finances, asking 130 staff to take voluntary redundancy in April 2024.
Lastly, Queens University in Belfast is also opening a GIFT City campus, to the tune of £5-7 million – while seeking to cut 270 jobs (5 percent of the workforce) to plug an £11 million deficit.
This is the logical conclusion of universities being marketised. With government funding reduced, Britain’s HE institutions have become reliant on international students and private investment.
Now international student numbers are plummeting, they’re in crisis. This is preparing an almighty struggle on campuses.
