The Labour Party needs to be the moderate alternative to the cuts

By Conor Pope / @Conorpope

My Students’ Union held an “emergency meeting” last Wednesday, to cast some light on how proposed Higher Education cuts could affect our college and so that we could have a discussion about the SU’s campaign to resist them.

So along I went; my hair too long, wearing a red scarf emblazoned with political buttons, a pair of hole-ridden converse and a girls’ cardigan, feeling every bit the lefty student. Finally, I was ready to throw off the shackles of being a left-centrist and embrace the world of boycotts and berets.

As I sat down in the lecture room, flyers were passed around. “Can we change the world through Parliament…” they asked, “or did Guy Fawkes have the right idea?” I must’ve unconsciously drifted far across the political spectrum if terrorism is left wing now. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s still pretty abhorrent to us.

The speakers began. Ed Marsh, an NUS officer, spoke passionately about quite what these cuts would mean. He said we had to take to the streets in peaceful protest, as many of us as possible, to show we weren’t going to take this, that this isn’t what the country voted for. He stirred the sense of justice within me and gave me hope that we could have a rally that would have a strong, uniting message. What he was saying was my politics. I didn’t have to pretend to be anything.

Then the other guests spoke. Tirades about breaking capitalism. Spiels promoting revolution and shunning “reform”. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as Simon Hardy, a Westminster student, used the word “war” nine times in his short speech and impressed upon us the importance of breaking police lines at the demo to show how serious we are.

Once debate with the audience started in earnest, I felt compelled to speak. I said I felt this language wouldn’t help, that opposing higher fees and swingeing cuts wasn’t radicalism. By suggesting that it was and implying that holding these views means you advocate a militant uprising to overthrow the system will only serve to alienate moderate students who feel these measures are going to compromise their education. I was met with something of a mixed response. I did not join them afterwards in their occupation of Deptford Town Hall.

So, as I attended the rally, there was a small part of me that feared that people with bonkers views might ruin it. For a long time, I needn’t have worried.

The first problem I experienced was going down Whitehall. Only the road heading towards Parliament and Millbank had been closed off for the demonstration, meaning we were at a standstill for around forty minutes. I don’t know whether this comes down to bad organisation from the NUS or police, or whether someone just completely underestimated how popular this march would be. After the better part of an hour of gridlock, it’s not surprising some broke through the barriers onto the other side of the road. As I apprehensively followed my friends I half expected riot police to appear out of the sky on horseback and baton me in the face.

The police however, a small presence, did nothing. NUS stewards begged and pleaded us to come back over.

The next problem we encountered was a sit down protest on Parliament Square. This time, very few people were disobedient, fewer than a hundred, but enough to cause another jam. The police were a bigger presence here, but I didn’t see them do anything. NUS stewards were apologetic to those caught up and urged us not to join in. Most protestors seemed annoyed by the break-offs and just tried to make their way past, down towards Millbank:

“We didn’t come here to sit down, we came here to stand up and march.”

As we got towards Millbank Tower, a man excitedly approached us. “The Tory HQ is just there,” he gushed, “and a few of us have gone inside to say hello. Why don’t you go and cheer them on?”

No sooner had he left, than another NUS steward approached us, beseeching us to stay on the other side of the road and keep on towards the speeches. There was a look of despair in her face. It wasn’t hard to see why. Behind her, a crowd had gathered; smoke billowing amongst them, panes of glass wobbling behind them.

We didn’t join the crowd. As many others did though, we watched on for a while from across the road. We watched them break glass and spray paint anarchy signs and cause explosions. Journalists on Twitter have since implied this showed a support for their actions. Journalists who also watched on, with their camera crews, who filmed this footage so that millions of others could watch – but it was us encouraging this behaviour, not them, despite the fact that the person who appeared on the front of nine national newspapers on Thursday was surrounded solely by photographers.

The group who invaded Millbank Tower, the more outside who vandalised the building and started fires, the more still who cheered them on and the much larger group that watched on in impartiality, however, were incomparable in terms of size to the crowd outside of Tate Britain who watched Aaron Porter deliver his speech. This was the group that had made it past the sit-in and the vandals, the group who just wanted to show that they think everyone deserves an education.

It is not those people have set our movement back. It’s people like Simon Hardy, for his incendiary rhetoric. People like the ones who gave him a platform. People, like the Campaigns Officer from my university, who signed this petition. People like London Young Labour officer Arthur Baker, who wrote this piece at Liberal Conspiracy. Even, I would go as far to say, as this piece on Labourlist by Cllr Alan Laing.

I can barely believe I have to write this. The Labour Party needs to be the moderate alternative to the cuts. We need to propose a credible answer to the coalition. You want to smash windows? There’s plenty of unelectable left wing alternatives. Get out, and let us get on with being a rational opposition. There’s no need to debate how far we condemn their actions and how far we harness their anger. We need total condemnation of their actions and make it clear that we are the home of moderates in the fight against cuts and higher fees. If terrorism means to intimidate for political purposes through violence, then what I saw at Millbank Tower was terrorism. It’s not left wing and it has no place in our party.

I saw what happened on Wednesday. Some who caused trouble were students, yes. It’s undeniable. But contrary to what some would have you believe, it was a minority, they were all extremists and they are unrepresentative of our movement.

As a student, I will fight to make sure that the people who suggest otherwise have no influence within our movement. Until we achieve that, we’ll make no progress.