I rarely like to make predictions, especially at the beginning of a year, however I feel confident in saying that 2011 will be the year of the student. The reason I believe this is because of the students of Leeds Trinity, who, since January 4th 2011 have re-occupied parts of Leeds Trinity University. Through contact them on Twitter, they kindly gave me an interview, I asked them several questions and this is what follows are my questions and their replies. In the interest of fairness, I have edited their responses as little as possible. I, the questioner is identified as ‘Peckitt’ and they as ‘OccupiedLTUC’ – our twitter names:
Peckitt: Put simply, why are you, the students of Leeds Trinity protesting or occupying?
OccupiedLTUC: We are occupying to oppose all the cuts brought in by the coalition government. We feel they are not only savage and ideological but unnecessary. We will be organising and marching at every opportunity and using the occupation as a base of operations to oppose the cuts and organise people from the community and our own studentship. We are also making sure that our own institution acts with integrity and includes the students in any decisions going forward that we feel we, as stakeholders have a right to be involved in.
Peckitt: How long do you intend to occupy and what exactly are you occupying?
OccupiedLTUC: There are no limits to the occupation, we are optimistic and the big aim for everyone in the anti cuts movement at the minute seems to be the TUC March on March 26th, whether we will be satisfied by the result of that or not is another matter. We have just moved at the minute and are occupying what used to be the staff common room. It was about to be refurbished, which we are hoping to halt. The staff feel they need this space and at this difficult time, we want to work with them and ensure they have a space to call their own, with a drink making facility and a means to get involved with our movment. We are very lucky with the staff here and they deserve our support. At a UCU meeting yesterday, we received their full and unanimous support, which shows how great they are.
Peckitt: Have you had support, formal or informal from Leeds Trinity Senior Management Team - for example have they given you the right to anonymity,a promise not be penalised with regards to attendance and exams. Have any Staff come in with food and so on.
OccupiedLTUC: The senior management team have offered some support certainly. We are co-operating at the moment and are negotiating in many circumstances for facilities etc. There has been no formal offer of anonymity however and no promise not to prosecute. Bothe these things were included in the list of demands presented in the occupation before Christmas but we feel the response we received was in no way sufficient or taken seriously.. So, there are some levels of support but we are far from receiving all of it.
Peckitt: There has been some bile from some quarters, regarding Aaron Porter, calling for his resignation. - how do you feel about this?
OccupiedLTUC: Aaron Porter and many other Labour feed position politicians have got away too long and too often with paving the way to a comfortable Labour seat without ever considering what it might be like to be an average constituent or individual within the systems or unions they control. If it were not for Labour abandoning their role as a working party, this situation would not be nearly as grave as it is now and the party who used to have such great working class politicians have become as elitist and mild mannered as their rivals. We feel that Aaron Porters self processed "spineless"ness and his following contrition are both born of a selfish desire for support and election and are tired of flacid promises from uninspiring politicians who will say anything to get elected and withdraw it as soon as they need a favour from someone with a familiar school tie. If the unions are to progress, they need union leaders, not aspiring politicians, as we are finding out, the politicians we have are liars, cheats, unprincipled and morally bankrupt.
Peckitt: Since it will become into effect from 2012 Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg & PM Cameron won't reverse it, what do you help to achieve by the occupation?
OccupiedLTUC: We feel that if Ed Miliband, Clegg and Cameron will not reverse the tuition fee rises, then they need to be replaced by someone who will. Since Labour, Lib Dem and Tory have basically become the same party since Tony Blair introduced the third way, there is nothing open to the working class as a voting option. We feel this, combined with some disgustingly racist policy from the last government and this one, is the biggest reason we see the working class voting for facsism. Fascists are in our opinion the worst form of political ideologists but they speak to the working class directly. They are being allowed to capitalise on a disenfranchised working class and social underclass and in many ways, this far right extremism is encouraged by politicians like Nadine Dorries, who want the tory party to travel further right, it is not acceptable but the major parties are doing nothing to combat it, which we feel highlights their take on the voters from this social strata. Put simply, they feel the bottom 5% do not even matter. It is unfortunate that the parties with the greatest moral integrity, will not take corporate money to fund their campaign and feel that as the campaign gains strength we will be supporting the changing of the laws as to how campaigns are funded.
Or more concisely, if the major parties are not supporting what we want, then we will support replacing all of the major parties with good ones. We have not considered an end date as yet. The things we are fighting for are large enough to potentially keep us here for a long time but that will depend. The occupation is only going to be useful as long as it shows results from us being here. We will certainly not be backing down any time soon and will continue to post demands and statements, which we feel will help shape our cause and our support.
I would usually end such an article with some analysis, but I feel that is best to leave the interview as it is, and let your good selves make your mind up. However, I will give the following information.
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