Student Broad Left

Saturday 18 May, Assemble 12 noon, Jubilee Gardens, Waterloo (Belvedere Road SE1) – March to Department of Health and Parliament.

There is no other candidate better qualified to lead the NUS International Students’ Campaign than the current London Met SU VP Education, Syed Rumman.

Syed is standing to take on the Tory government’s vicious policies against international students, their racist scapegoating and their savage cuts which are destroying Britain’s education system and public services.

Today the Tories are spending £10m of public money to glorify the legacy of Margaret Thatcher in a state-funded funeral - in the same month that the poorest and most vulnerable people in society are getting their benefits slashed.

Next week hundreds of students will be participating in the Bring Back EMA National Day of Action on Tuesday 19 March – the day before Tory Chancellor George Osborne delivers his budget to Parliament.

This national day of action will see more than 10 campuses - from Gateshead to Birmingham - doing stunts, banner drops, petitioning MPs and more in a bid to raise the profile of the campaign to bring back EMA and put pressure on George Osborne and MPs ahead of the budget.

Students are continuing to occupy a Sussex University building in protest against planned privatisation of key university services.

Student Broad Left sends its full support and solidarity to the occupation.

Student Broad Left National Planning Meeting - Saturday 2 February, University of London Union

NUS Scotland’s ‘Fund Scotland’s Future’ campaign against the Scottish Government’s proposal to cut the further education budget by £34.6m is a brilliant example of what NUS as a whole should be doing to fight to defend students across Britain from the greatest assault on students and education in living memory.

Last weekend’s National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts (NCAFC) Conference failed to agree a serious way forward in the student fight-back against austerity.

In the wake of the Tories’ Autumn Statement which launched fresh attacks on ordinary people last week, the emphasis of the NCAFC conference was not how to build the biggest and most united campaigns possible against fees and cuts, but rather on how to exclude people.

The next steps in the student fight-back against cuts, fees, racism and war – for free education, equality, peace and twenty first century socialism.

Come along to the next Student Broad Left nationally planning meeting on Saturday 1 June at the University of London Union from 1pm – 5pm.

The NUS leadership, led by Labour Students, built a right wing coalition at Conference which succeeded in rejecting all proposals that NUS lead a fight-back against austerity. Candidates that support NUS doing nothing to defend students won all of the full time elections at the conference – including the NUS Presidency and all of the Vice President positions.

Whilst the student left did not leave this year’s conference victorious, we did succeed in polarising NUS National Conference around the key issues facing the student movement. The key dividing lines were:

· Should NUS accept or fight cuts to education? · Should NUS stand for free education or a lifetime of student debt? · Should NUS remain silent or challenge the rise of racist scapegoating?

On March the 25th, students and staff at the University of Sussex will be marching across the campus to oppose plans to sell off essential services to private companies. 235 staff are at risk of lowered wages, worsened working conditions and pensions, whilst students face unaccountable services run in the interests of profit.

Today is the final day of the hugely successful Bring Back EMA National Week of Action.

This week has been a crucial opportunity for us to send a clear message to the Tory-led government that we will not stand for cuts and attacks on students.

Hundreds of students have so far been involved – from tweeting and sending emails to MPs, to the 17+ campuses that have organised petitions, stalls and more, to the students at Cambridge University who did a banner drop this morning – this week has shown the dynamism of students and our willingness to fight-back.

Student Broad Left is proud to support founder of the Bring Back EMA Campaign and NUS NEC member, Matt Stanley, for NUS Vice President Further Education. Here we share his draft manifesto and initial supporters list. Please contact Matt directly to add your name to his supporters list and volunteer to join his campaign team.

"I am pleased and excited to announce that I will be standing for NUS Vice President Further Education at this year’s NUS National Conference, taking place in Sheffield this April.

I’m standing to turn NUS around. We need a national union that fights to defend students against the enormous assault we are facing from the Tory-led government.

As NUS VP Further Education I would take the fight to the Tories – uniting our movement behind a serious campaign to force a government u-turn to bring back EMA. I stand for an NUS that actively builds massive opposition to cuts and fees – and for the student movement to link up with other progressive movements in fighting racism, inequality, climate change and war.

In response to the enormous cuts offensive against students and the huge assaults on the living standards of the majority of society, a concerted opposition needs to be mounted.

Those waging the attacks want us all to be divided so that the opposition to austerity is weak. The left must try to ensure they are unsuccessful and that the movement against austerity is united.

The current NUS leadership is not in favour of opposing the massive attacks on students. Only the left is offering a way forward – for a fighting NUS that actively defends students against cuts, fees and attacks on our living standards.

‘The Independent’ columnist Owen Jones and Guardian writer Seumas Milne have written brilliant articles demolishing the Tories’ latest enormous assault on ordinary people - the Welfare Bill - and the vicious, divisive propaganda that has accompanied. A government of millionaires has just made the poor poorer, whilst the government's austerity assault isn't delivering jobs or decent wages. Here we share their pieces.