Student politics needs a rethink

The vacuity of politicians’ language occasionally needs exposing for what it is. In the run up to the U.S. midterm elections, a noticeable malaise has befallen the Democrat party rank and file. The promise evoked in 2008 by the then-messianic Obama has deflated under the painfully average conduct of a conservative regime. The chasm between the sweeping rhetoric of two years ago and the frustration of the system has proven painful for many American voters.

As for the UK, Parliament has often been called the longest running farce on the West End, and with good reason. The shiny, new, ‘in-opposition’ Labour party under Ed Miliband has undertaken a rhetorical shift to the Left. Undoubtedly this shamefaced hypocrisy was only made possible when the tories finally undertook the dirty work of sorting out the country’s financial mess.
Do not be fooled – our political memories must be longer than that of the figurative goldfish. Labour offered us bitter solutions in April as they geared up to slash our higher education budgets and public sector jobs. They offered still less as they pushed to privatise one of the last vestiges of our welfare state, the NHS.

For anyone angry about the severity of the impending ‘austerity measures’, do not seek relief in the bankrupt opposition party. Not that the coalition government is preferable. Far from it. All George Osborne’s talk of ‘fairness’ and being ‘in this together’ is brewed from the same cauldron of untruth.

It is merely a sleight of hand attempt to instil in the popular consciousness a notion of ‘us’, the British Nation. The purpose of the semantic palliative is simply to dampen down the strong possibility of dissent and radical opposition; to render the illusion of a single, shared national experience amidst the financial crisis.

As the savage attacks on higher education continue, in part the recommendations of the Lord Browne review, but also the government’s proposed funding cuts, we are at a crossroads. As the Boar predicted at the end of last term, the financial onslaught has had a galvanising effect on some students. As the national NUS demo looms in London (November 10th), our Union is in the midst of arranging transport to the event. The fight for fair education, and not ‘fairness’ as envisaged by Osborne et al, must be waged by us all – not merely those whom the changes will directly affect. Just as the saviour figure of Obama ultimately has fallen short, neither can we be complacent.

We cannot ‘leave it to the authorities’ who would jump at the chance to sculpt our entire education to meet the needs of the Economy. We cannot leave it to our Union, who, without our support and critique is little more than a symbolic talking shop. We cannot lie down, mute and submissive as the next small change chips away further at the notion of education for all.
But this is no time for a sectarian response. So called ‘student issues’ are not the only issues that affect us. Whilst our identities may currently be dominated by that label, it will not be so for very long. It is time to take action, and to rethink our politics. Now is not the time to ask; it is not even the time to demand. It is the time to assert for ourselves a political and economic system that works for us, not against us.