NUS president makes U-turn to support direct action, and occupations

Submitted by Newcastle on 28 November, 2010 - 5:00 Author: Ed Whitby

NUS president Aaron Porter today did a spectacular U-turn apologising for lack of support for students taking part in the national day of action called by National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts on Wednesday. A the "spineless" lack of public support for university occupations around the country.

Porter was speaking the occupation at University College London following criticisms of him from occupiers over Twitter. Porter said: "For too long the NUS has perhaps been too cautious and too spineless about being committed to supporting student activism. Perhaps I spent too long over the last few days doing the same.  I just want to apologise for my dithering in the last few days."

Adding: "I want to be clear and unambiguous right now. Wherever there is non-violent student action, NUS should and will support that. What we are facing is utterly disgraceful and for us to engage in some kind of internal civil war is exactly what our opponents would want."
And he agreed to the following demands from the occupation on behalf of NUS

• Publicly support all student occupations on the frontpage of the NUS website and all available media.

• Call immediately for a new wave of occupations as a legitimate form of protest against fees and cuts.

• Organise financial, legal and political aid for all current and future occupations.

• Call a national day of action on the day of the parliamentary vote on tuition fees.

• Officially support any staff taking further industrial action on cuts.

It appears he is now giving NUS support to the second day of action called by NCAFC and supported by hundreds of school student groups being coordinated across the country. The day of action is happening on Tuesday 30 November.

Many of the university occupations are still ongoing including UCL, Manchester, Leeds, SOAS, Edinburgh, Sheffield and many more.

But the occupations and day of action are already winning demands as well as having a massive affect on the confidence of anyone fighting these attacks. NUS changing the position of passive opposition of the last 10 years, arguing for lobbies and talking to MPs. And some Universities are being forced to conceed some demands and condemn the government including South Bank University in London who have conceded all demands.

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