On April 18th around 100 activists gathered at University College London to discuss action and coordinate their various campaigns at the National Student Coordination. There were representatives, delegates and individuals from many different organisations including Communist Students, the Socialist Workers Party, Education Not for Sale, Another Education is Possible, Socialist Appeal, the Alliance for Worker’s Liberty, G20 Meltdown, Action Palestine, Stop the War, FRFI, Workers Power (of course) REVOLUTION. Also present were many students who had been involved in the recent wave of University Occupations which protested the atrocities in Gaza- people came from as far flung places as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Cambridge and Sussex. There was also an international presence in the room, with French activists attending to share their experiences and learn more about the way the Lefties operate in Britain. An American student on holiday in London also decided to attend.

Needless to say, with so many different people with so many different ideas, ideologies and perspectives there was bound to be disagreement, but for the most part people kept it civil and the overwhelming mood was that unity in action should be sought to achieve common goals.

REVOLUTION and other student activists first called for this coordination with the aim of uniting different radical activists and planning both national and international action - against the Israeli state’s brutal treatment of Gaza, against the disgustingly expensive and exploitative nature of the current education system and against the global attacks of the capitalist system on hard-working and poor people the world over.

There were several meetings and workshops throughout the day, the first session beginning with a member of the French New Anticapitalist Party talking about the recent years’ student movements - against the CPE (a law which took away young people‘s right not to be randomly fired), against Sarcozy and against the students and workers being made to pay for the capitalist crisis. Throughout his talk the importance of united, coordinated, action became increasingly clear and the overall message was that we have to spread our movement if we want it to be more powerful. This was followed by many people giving short talks from the floor (some good, some slightly crazy) about what protests and movements they had been involved in and how they thought student radicalism could be expanded.

There was a lot of agreement about the need to unite students’ struggles with those of workers (although a member of Socialist Appeal took this too far by saying that students were politically impotent (tell that to veterans of May ’68!), but a lot of debates as well. Communist Students’ representatives emphasised the need for Marxist unity, ignoring the fact that many people there weren’t Marxists. Needless to say their proposal didn’t sit too well with the majority of the room. There was also debate over what could be done with the National Union of Students (which recently lost its last veneer of democracy), SWP members arguing to stay within it and fight the right-wing from the inside, while others felt that it has been totally crippled by the Labour elite and had become useless. REVOLUTION members emphasised the need to put pressure on the NUS, fighting with it where possible and without it and against it where necessary to show students that it won’t consistently represent them. Debate was lively.

After a quick lunch break, there were several workshops on what future actions could be taken by students to defend our rights, defend the planet and defend the people of Palestine. Once again there were some great (and not-so great) suggestions; these included calling a conference to discuss the boycott of Israel, setting up public meetings which could debate the nature and role of Zionism, and working with the University and College Union to fight job losses and cuts in education funding, and taking a week of action in the autumn against attacks on education. Perhaps most impressive was the working out of the logistics to send an aid convoy to Gaza.

A workshop on climate change reached broad agreement that the economic crisis and working class fight back presented an opportunity to fight climate change. The workshop recognised that the occupation by Visteon workers had put the issue of workers’ control onto the agenda and it was pointed out that the workers had talked about the possibilities of changing the function of the factory so it could provide tools for recycling. Revolution pointed out that this was an important step towards the fight for a democratically planned economy – most others agreed.

The workshop on fees and cuts in higher education was packed with students from across the country. We heard about the cuts that had taken place at universities like Liverpool John Moores, Liverpool and London Met and the resistance that students and lecturers had launched to fight back. There was also time for a brief discussion on the nature of the neo-liberal attacks on our education which had proven to be so damaging, leaving students with so much debt to pay off later in life.

The meeting agreed an action, to protest at the Universities UK conference in London on May 7th. This conference is designed to act as a gathering of all the businesses partners who are interested in getting their dirty profit grabbing hands on our education. Safe to say there is a lot of activity planned on that day to make our voices heard!

The final session of the day went fairly well, considering the differences of opinion in the room. Previous organising meetings had suggested the last session could be a chance for individuals and groups to put forward motions which the co-ordination could then act upon. Though this seems like a sensible and practical idea, some people disagreed. They argued that some of the motions would give the co-ordination an exclusionary political character (although they could have just voted against the motions they felt did so). A lot of time was spent debating the nature of voting and whether or not we could achieve a ‘consensus’. Eventually voting for motions in the meeting was banned, ironically enough, by voting on it. A combined SWP and libertarian block vote was able to win by 5 votes. This meant the last session essentially reported the decisions made during the workshops and encouraged individuals to get involved in them, join different mailing lists, and stay in touch at the end. Fortunately some concrete united action was salvaged - there will be more national coordinations – one in June and the other in October, with open planning meetings to decide a provisional timetable of events. In addition the conference voted to support the European coordination to be held in Louvain, Belgium in a weeks time.

Despite a somewhat frustrating ending, the day was a success. With such an ideologically diverse conference that agreement to take the initiative forward was a very good outcome. Experiences were shared, different groups and individuals who had never heard of each other before left pledging common action, and it seemed clear to everybody that this was only the start of nationally coordinated planning, networking, debate and action within the UK student movement.

Prospects
Many students may still be wondering where to go forward and how the April 18 meeting fits into the development of the student movement in Britain. Was it 'just another conference'? Or was it the beginning of something more? Revolution believes that we need to develop a new student movement in Britain, and that a well organised and large regular co-ordination is a very important step towards building that. It will not be under the control of any one group, instead it will act as an organising base to co-ordinate our activities and share resources. The meeting in April was a good step forward, although a modest one. But where else can these kinds of debates be had out and networks created?

The student movement is in a mess, the left is disorientated by the defeats in the NUS, and now has been launched into new terrain by the Gaza occupation movement – but no one can offer a clear leadership. ENS want to focus on free education and fees, - yes very important, but the wider international political sphere is equally important for our activism. Communist Students want to base everything on Marxism, unwilling to take serious steps towards joint action on key issues unless the Marxists agree to unite first. The SWP have set up a front, Another Education is Possible, which they do not seem willing to launch as a serious broad student movement - even if they did would they not want to dominate and control it, strangling the democratic discussions that we need to plan strategy and tactics?

Such a new organisation will not be easy to establish, but with careful steps forward and hard work we can build such organisation – a crucial weapon in the fight for student rights in Britain.