Guest article by @fatcouncillor

The recent student protests, have been a case study, in how not to win an argument.

At first glance, the students had a strong case. Certainly, trebling student fees would appear to be, grossly unfair. However, the contra-argument, goes that, as everyone else’s suffering cuts, it’s only right that the students themselves shoulder some of the burden. There are certainly valid arguments on both sides of the student fees debate.

For students, this was always going to be a difficult argument to win. The UK is now governed by a majority Conservative coalition whose mentality certainly appears to be one of ‘you pay for what you use’. So in order to win the argument, students needed to have a clear, focused campaign strategy in place, whereby they both garnered public support, and maintain pressure on the government.

Sadly or happily, depending on the side of the argument is that you are on, the wheels came off the student bandwagon, during the very first protest in London, when viewers of the BBC News Channel and Sky News were treated to the sight of students throwing missiles at the police, lighting fires, and breaking into buildings causing tens of thousands of pounds of damage. Those scenes were replayed time and again over the following 24 hours.

The students, through their leader, Aaron Porter, and other NUS representatives, then further undermined their argument, by claiming that the rioting and violence were carried out by a handful of anarchists, and that students were not involved. This argument was proven to be untrue by, amongst others, the Daily Mail, and the blogger, Guido Fawkes, who published photographs of NUS representatives and students clearly taking part in the riots.

Additionally, the assertions made by Aaron Porter, were contradicted by the rolling news video, which showed a significant number of placard carrying students directly involved in violence, fighting the police and property destruction.

It seems to me, the students were particularly badly let down by the NUS. When it became clear that it was indeed students who had rioted, Aaron Porter lost credibility, and I for one believe that Mr Porter was more concerned about his future political career than representing students.

After the first protest, the NUS should have taken time to develop a new strategy whereby the argument could be made without the protests disintegrating into violence and destruction. Instead the NUS stepped back from the protests and were replaced by a myriad of local committees and activists. While this clearly removed the focus from the NUS nationally, it also caused the fragmentation of the protests and a loss of focus.

There was no clear leadership, no strategic aims were being articulated, and the message was lost as student protesters began to conflate the tuition fees process with the general UK uncut anti-cuts protest. There are those on the left, such as Laurie Penny, writing in the “New Statesman”, who argue that this is a movement without leadership, and the old structure is no longer apply, and that in effect the world is a different place, and we had all better get used
to it.

However, it should be as plain as the nose on your face, that a group of people with a shared goal, need to have a leader and a strategy, in order to achieve that goal.

To fail to understand this causes two problems. Firstly, the people involved in the movement need leadership, so in that face of a vacuum, they create their own leadership structures. But, people being people, some of these leadership structures will be more about the leadership than the goal. The stated aims and goals of the movement will become difficult to recognise as each leadership group develops a subtly different set of goals.

Secondly, as the aims and goals of the movements are no longer clear, and in some cases contradictory, both the public, and politicians, will be confused as to what students are demanding. In these circumstances, all the government has to do, is to put forward a reasoned argument as to why the changes are necessary. The student argument is then lost, and the media focus moves away onto the next set of government cuts.

Quite how the student protest this is anyone’s guess. But one thing is for sure. The argument is lost, and the focus has shifted to books and laptops for children, how dreadful BBC’s Christmas programmes are been, and the weather.

There are those within the student leadership (the leadership of the group which has no leadership, remember?) Who are arguing that this is a repeat of the poll tax riots. In short, they are deluded. The poll tax riots united the electorate, with hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life protesting and fighting the government. This has not happened in the students fees protests.

There is no broad support for protests. We did not seem masses of people taking days off to go to London to protest. It did not happen, and it will not happen. This argument is lost. The people on the streets required to get this government to revisit legislation which has already passed through both houses of parliament, will not materialise.

At best, we will see a ragtag of unions, the Socialist Workers Party, and students. And any future protest will be set in the context of violence and property destruction. It will achieve nothing.

Students have been betrayed because the people who they saw as their leaders are looking after themselves. And the people who are sprung up in place of the leaders are simply trying to make a name for themselves, and are using students and the protests to that end.

At some point, students will recognise this. But by then no one will care. This is not, and never has been 1968 all over again. Neither is it the poll tax riots. this is a group of students who have been badly let down by the leadership. At a time when they needed that leadership, what they got was self-interest and the usual suspects looking to make a name for themselves.

The argument is lost, but students don’t realise it yet

Shibley Rahman would like to thank the Fat Councillor for the effort that he put into writing this excellent article.