The struggles in response to the Con-Dem tuition fee increase and abolition of the EMA have inspired us all.
Together, we’ve mobilised hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have never been involved in political action before.
School students and sixth-formers have been at the forefront.
Many actions have been organised and led by women.
Our protests have been ethnically diverse.
We’ve dared to do more than just polite A to B marches or lobbies of councillors and MPs; we’ve organised walk-outs, sit-downs and occupations. We have, in short, sent a message to the rest of our class; we do not have to take the attacks from this government lying down. And we won’t.
You might be reading barricade on the next national day of action. You might be reading it on 11 December, a day of action called by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts and supported by a range of other networks and campaigns. That is on a weekend to allow more workers to participate.
You might be reading it on the demonstrations on the day of the parliamentary vote on the tuition fee increase.
The fact that you might have bought this on any one of a number of actions coming up in December shows that we’re dealing with a pace of political activity unheard of for the better part of a generation. But that pace will not be maintained without organisation.
barricade thinks the ideas drawn up by the National Campaign Against Fees and cuts are really good. barricade also believes that a revolutionary socialist politics of class struggle will be needed to defeat this government. That doesn’t mean we should wait for workers’ organisations (trade unions, which can often be sluggish and bureaucratic) to wake up before we act ourselves, but it does mean understanding that the power to defeat capitalism fundamentally lies with the people who make it move – workers.
If we base ourselves on workers’ struggles, and use our own energy and direct action creativity to support them and link them with our own, we can not only resist immediate attacks but launch an offensive of our own that can bring down the government.
