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UEA students occupy!

Anna Tomson | 02.12.2010 09:15 | Education | Public sector cuts

At approximately 8.15am a group of UEA students rushed into the council building of the University of East Anglia and began a peaceful occupation to protest the government’s plans to raise tuition fees and cut funding to higher education.

The action comes on the same day as the ‘Big Debate’ organised by the Union of Students at UEA which will see Aaron Porter, NUS president, Simon Wright, Libdem MP for Norwich South and former Labour MP for Norwich North Ian Gibson. Following the revelation that Simon Wright has come out against the rise of tuition fees students would like to congratulate the MP and encourage him to do all his power to continue the fight for free education. One student currently occupying the building said ‘this is a peaceful occupation, we will do no damage to the building but we feel this is a necessary action to show that we feel we have been betrayed by our university and by the government.’

UEA’s Vice Chancellor, who has refused to comment on his position on tuition fees, is being asked to support students and take an anti-fees stance.

Aaron Porter, who last week pledged solidarity for students occupying at UCL, is expected to show support when he comes on campus later today.

The occupying students are asking for a show of solidarity from UEA students and lecturers in the fight for free education!

Anna Tomson
- e-mail: a.tomson@uea.ac.uk

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

I 'like' this!

02.12.2010 09:54

 http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/University-of-East-Anglia-in-Occupation/173270342697034

Crazy Horse

Mr Aaron Porter

02.12.2010 11:33

Porter plays catch up with the student movement. Trust him about as far as you could throw him.

Deal P

aaron porter

02.12.2010 12:30

The previous comment is quite right: only when he saw he was being left behind by the mass of students did Porter criticise his earlier lack of support for student action as 'spineless'.

Which demonstrated his spinelessness a second time.

That man knows one thing only: suck up to power, where ever you find it. He is an embryo of Hazel Blears. Students: make sure you boss him!

a lecturer

Fuck Negotiation! Demand Nothing!

02.12.2010 13:39

There's no point in addressing the university administators to lobby for free education and the like. In an increasingly automated society there simply isn't the need for as many graduates, hence rise in tution fees and EMA cuts. Social mobility simply isn't economically advantageous for their profits.
So where is the power? Us. In generalising the struggle. Avoiding leftist and 'The Guardian' recuperative powers, keep it autonomous- not isolated! Linking it with the wider anti-cuts campaigns and posing a strong confrontational message, not of resistance but of something new.
Don't left the State apparatus up the ante with their attacks on everyone that doesn't own property. We're the ones who have the potenial to become a fluid destructive force while reclaiming space and organising it with self-managment.
This may sound heady, well it is, but we already have the basic capabilities of this, with tax dodgers and political party HQs being smashed, aswell as the university occupations.
Act for yourself, agitate your class and don't pander to the social mangers.

autonomouse
- Homepage: http://www.anokchan.com

Free Universities

02.12.2010 16:23

This struggle is being won; not by negotiation but by action. By occupying the universities we are opening them up to everyone for free. We are running lectures, seminars, films and parties. We are linking up with workers in many industries. By sharing food and so on we are ending the expropriation of the surplus value we produce.

Universal Universities

Huh?

03.12.2010 11:16

"This struggle is being won; not by negotiation but by action. By occupying the universities we are opening them up to everyone for free. We are running lectures, seminars, films and parties. We are linking up with workers in many industries. By sharing food and so on we are ending the expropriation of the surplus value we produce."

Which workers in which industries?

Nobby