Cuts in further education colleges

The cuts outlined by the condem coalition will be a savage attack on further education colleges, particularly in the adult education region.  £200 million will be cut in adult education, which will result in many courses being discontinued because of a lack of funding.  For adult colleges, an average of 16% of spending cuts will be implemented. This will be devastating for colleges; they will be unable to update their materials and resources, leading to a degrading educational experience and reducing the quality of education. The cuts will mean more applicants will be turned away. Already inadequate apprentiships will be compromised so that more students will be clogged in doing donkey work for businesses and not really learning anything of value to help them in the working world. They are more likely to learn how to deal with alienation at work, accepting orders without question and will be convinced that their low positions are their own making, rather then blaming the capitalist system, which has implemented these cuts and punishing the majority rather than the minority who caused the recession.

These cuts will see job losses of staff in colleges and bigger class sizes. This is inefficient and the quality of education is unfairly reduced. The already inadequate EMA grant will be reduced, and this will force young people into unskilled and low paid work, because it is too costly for them to be in full time education. With these cuts in education, the economy can’t move forward because of an inadequate number of skilled people, yet there will be a scrap heap of unskilled people, willing to accept low paid work or face poverty, which is a delight for the capitalists who exploit their cheap labour.

We demand that these cuts should be halted as they do not serve in the interest of the majority.  We demand that EMA should be increased, and an end to cruel means testing making EMA available to everyone. Free education from infancy to university should be implemented along with a living allowance grant while studying. We demand that all aprrentaships should have a guarantee at the job at the end, and to offer union rates of pay. Millions of jobs can be created by creating environmentally friendly public services. Only a working class movement can achieve this of workers and students as the needs of the majority will topple the needs of the minority.

Young people and the 2011 council elections

The local elections have certainly given young people alot to think about. A year ago in the general election, thousands of young people turned to the liberal democrats, because they saw them as a alternative to the two party system of labour and conservatives. The lib dems made promises of voting against tuition fees, creating a premium for poorer students and creation of jobs for young people. However a year later and tuition fees have tripled, with cuts to EMA poorer students are excluded from education and nearly a million young people are unemployed.

Now under the leadership of Ed Milliband Labour are trying to make themselves look like a alternative to the con-dem coalition, with their rhetoric of “too far too fast”, and trying to woo disillusioned lib dem supporters by Ed supporting the yes campaign, Labour are remodelling themselves to win support. Though what alternative do they offer? They offer a program of cuts, maybe a little different from the cuts of the con-dems, but nevertheless a package of devastating cuts.

People have turned to other parties as a alternative because they are alienated by the similarities of the main 3 parties. They may turn to UKIP, whose right wing agenda would lead to huge marketisation of schools and colleges leading to a two tier system, where the rich go to the best schools and the poor are excluded to the underfunded schools.

They could turn to the green party, while they may have fair policies on the environment, they still lack the understanding that it’s the system we live in, with the vast economic inequalities that cannot provide for the majority of people. The greens have not committed to fighting all cuts to jobs and services in which employment should be available for young.

However, there is an alternative out there, a alternative that will defend every job and every service. The socialist alternative can not only stop the cuts, but provide for new jobs and socially useful services. The privatisation of council services mean that profit is put before people. But with nationalisation people are the priority. A socialist alternative can provide jobs for graduates where capitalism can’t, such as using people with science degrees to research the environment or those with sociology degrees to research crime. A socialist alternative can provide jobs for the manual workers with building council housing and repairing out roads.

I’ve met candidates from all three of the main parties during my campaign. All three parties claim they will protect frontline services. But what about the workers in the background? How many of their jobs will you take? How can frontline services continue without the support of the background staff? Candidates have also said there isn’t a need for cuts to services because of waste and beurocracy in the council. But with the council having to make cuts of £27 million, will they find all that money? Were not for beurocracy and waste, but we also argue that if someone’s job in the council is unnecessary, then give them a more useful job. But the 3 main parties are hell bent on laying off workers.

While it’s important that we stood in the council elections, we don’t expect a landslide win. While the lib dems will suffer from their betrayal of young people and the Tories from their cuts program, people won’t be voting labour with all enthusiasm. Our biggest achievement will be alerting to people that there is an alternative out there, where people are priority. The next step is to continue fighting for working people, while our voices won’t be heard in the council chambers they will be heard on the streets and we can build the socialist alternative that provides for all.

Who are the EDL and how do we oppose them?

The English defence league is a protest group who claim its aim is to oppose what it calls the islamification of Britain, Sharia law and extremist islamists.  The EDL was originated after national sympathy was expressed for the group “united peoples of Luton”. This organisation was set up to protest against Muslims who would picket parades when soldiers returned from Afghanistan, holding placards such as “soldiers are not hero’s, they’re murderers” or “soldiers are baby killers”. This sparked outrage amongst people from Luton, and unfortunately they’re anger was directed at the whole Muslim community rather than the tiny minority of Muslims who belonged to Al-Muhajiroun, an organisation banned under the 2001 terrorism act.

The EDL hold regular protests up and down the country, and everywhere they go they leave a path of violence, destruction and create a lot of media attention. They are associated with violence and anti social behaviour, as there are usually fights, hostile crowds and racist and intimidating chanting. This has led to some of their demonstrations being banned. Wherever the EDL go there is always heavy police presence in riot gear, and every EDL demonstration costs the police force between £300,000 to £1 million pounds. This shows the threat that the EDL pose when protesting. Journalists who attend demos and write articles about the EDL have received death threats, and the national union of journalists has released statements about the threats. In Wales, stoke and Dudley the EDL have broke through police lines, injuring officers. This is extremely dangerous, because alcohol fuelled football hooligan members of the EDL are very dangerous, and they have the intent to cause harm.

The EDL have been described by the media and some organisations, such as UAF as the same and the BNP. However we see this as incorrect. The EDL are explicit about how they allow members of other ethnicities to join them, and this was documented in the BBC3 documentary “young British and angry”, where there were interviews with black and Asian members. The spokes person for the EDL is also a person coming from Sikh origin. The EDL also has a “Jewish division”, as they try to appear that they are not anti-Semitic. The main organiser of the EDL even has a mixed race daughter. The EDL claim they are not racist because they only target a section of Islam they see as extremist, and insist they welcome Muslim members. The BNP has only let members of other ethnicities join them because they were forced to by the law, and I don’t really need to explain other ways in which the BNP are a racist organisation. The BNP has also banned its members from joining the EDL with the threat of expulsion, and the EDL has condemned the BNP in many of their writings. Individual members of the EDL are certainly racist, at past demos there have been chanting such as “we hate Muslims”, however I believe the majority are disillusioned and have been given the wrong ideas and scapegoating their problems onto another race instead of blaming the actual cause of their problems which is actually capitalism.

The EDL still pose big threats. One of them is a ready trained street army ready to be coached around the country, creating havoc at every city they visit, and dividing multi cultural communities. They threaten to disillusion young people, making them believe all of society’s problems can be solved by stopping immigration and disposing of extremists. Many members attending EDL demos are attending simply because they’re looking to provoke a fight, or a social event in which they can express their prejudice views with many others. Dates for EDL demos are carefully selected, for example the EDL demo in Nottingham was the same date as the Forrest and Leicester derby match, that way football hooligans already riled up from a derby football game can take to the streets angry and more in the mood for creating havoc, in an effort to get the most attention to the demo. The aftermaths of demonstrations are extremely dangerous as well, with less police around and groups of EDL in the streets can be very intimidating for the public.

The question is though, how to oppose the EDL and how can we as socialists offer an alternative.

In the BBC3 documentary “Young English and angry” there was a interview with a young man who said “There’s nothing here for us, the people and the working class, white English men of this country, a lot of us out of work, millions of us out of work, were not being listened to, and the mainstream political parties aren’t listening to us, were poor, were stuck in a poverty trap, all we want is work, and that’s all we want, we’ve got no voice”

To me I think he echo’s the thoughts and feelings of a large section of the EDL. They’re not really racist and have a fascist agenda, they’re just angry at the mainstream parties and they’re looking for an alternative, because they just want work, though unfortunately instead of directing their anger at capitalism, their problems are scapegoated onto ethnic minorities. People like this can be won over by the socialist argument that capitalism will inevitably have unemployment and poverty, and only through working class movements can we overcome this barrier.

Organisations who oppose the EDL such as unite against fascism simply condemn the members of the EDL, displaying placards such as “BNP + EDL = Nazi racist thugs” and chant slogans such a “Nazi scum off our streets”. This does nothing but spur on members of the EDL and make them angrier. The UAF go to EDL demonstrations to oppose the EDL, however they do not attempt to offer alternatives to the demands of the EDL. UAF members have also been arrested at demos, and although sometimes this is inevitable, they serve to make the EDL look like victims. UAF have also broke police lines, and some of their members are there looking for a fight with members of the EDL.

However, the socialist party offers a real alternative. Our main slogan is “jobs and homes, not racism”. This slogan echo’s the demands of EDL members who aren’t at EDL demonstrations to shout racist chants, but because they are angry at the fact that the labour and con-dem governments can’t give them basic needs.  We feel that many members of the EDL can be won over, by talking and debating with them properly, rather than the UAF who go to demonstrations to shout abuse at EDL members, and not solving anything. Only socialism can meet the needs of the majority, because even if the EDL were to prevail in their agenda to rid Britain of the majority of Muslims, they would move the blame onto another minority. Reducing the population of Britain by deporting immigrants won’t stop the fact that the recession took place, and proportional unemployment will remain the same. The working class will still be exploited, cuts to the public sector will still happen, poverty and unemployment will still be a cancerous tumour in society and divisions between rich and poor will continue. The solution is for people from all walks of life to unite and work together in a working class movement to topple capitalism.