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Nick Griffin has been removed from his position as leader of the British National Party, following the party’s disastrous electoral performance earlier this year. The former leader was ousted at a meeting of the party’s national executive on Saturday, after the party lost all of their MEP’s and all but two of their councillors in this year’s local elections. Griffin’s role as party chairman will now be filled by disgraced teacher Adam Walker.
Walker, who had only recently taken on the position deputy chairman, was given a lifetime ban from teaching following an incident that saw him drive his Land Rover across a village green in pursuit of three boys aged between ten and twelve, before slashing the tyres of their bicycles with a knife.
This wasn’t Walker’s first brush with the authorities; he had previously come to their attention after using a school computer to send hate filled messages describing immigrants as “savage animals”. Astonishingly, the teaching council rapped his knuckles for misuse of equipment – but cleared him of racism. It would seem that such problems run in Walker’s family as his brother Mark is also a BNP activist, as well as a disgraced teacher. Mark was struck off for using school computers – this time to send sleazy emails with lines like “I124Q” to a 16 year old former pupil.
The change in leadership, which sees Griffin now take on the role of party president, was announced in a statement on the BNP website. The statement read: “Recently appointed deputy chairman, Adam Walker, has accepted the role of acting chairman of the British National Party after Nick Griffin stepped aside at a meeting of the BNP national executive… The full national executive are united in their support for Adam in this role.”
Whilst Griffin was at the helm for the BNP’s boost in 2009 (the party took 6% of the vote in the European elections and saw the election of a number of local and county councillors) he was unable to hold the party firm against the rise of UKIP on the anti-European right. In this year’s European elections the BNP managed only 1% of the vote, and lost the majority of its council seats including Griffin’s own in Strasbourg. This led to severe decline for the BNP as internal fights raged around the party’s finances, though Steven Squire – the London organiser of the BNP – said on Monday that although there had been some “bickering” within the party in the past “that is all over now and unlike other political parties, we are not in debt”. In response to the successes of UKIP, Griffin said that BNP supporters who wanted to “send them all home” would end up disappointed if they had voted for UKIP as an alternative.
These clear and openly far right views will remain, if not intensify, with Walker as party leader. In a speech to a party audience last November, Mr Walker claimed that white Britons were facing a process of “ethnic cleansing” and suggested further killings like that of off-duty soldier Lee Rigby were likely. He accused the leaders of the three main political parties of turning Britain into a “multicultural shithole”.
When considering recent leavers of the BNP this shift to a harder far right position can be better understood. Two prominent cases are that of former chair and MEP Andrew Brons and former councillor Paul Golding. Brons parted ways with the BNP in October 2012 and four months later launched the British Democratic Party with former BNP organiser Kevin Scott. The two had previously accused the BNP of ongoing corruption and the watering down of its politics. The BDP is expected to re-focus efforts on promoting scientific racism, calling for the compulsory repatriation of non-whites and heavily pushing the notion that the Holocaust is a hoax – core policies that Nick Griffin tried to either disguise or entirely extinguish after taking over the BNP in 1999.
Golding, formerly a BNP councillor for Sevenoaks and communications officer for the party, now sits as director of Britain First – the nationalist outfit founded by the BNP’s former chief fundraiser Jim Dowson, who sensationally quit the party after being accused of groping a party activist. Golding describes his party as a “street defence organisation” opposed to radical extremists. The group is probably best known for their ‘Christian Patrols’ and mosque invasions. Britain First members have driven around in military jeeps while handing out Christian literature to Muslims around Tower Hamlets and invaded the East London Mosque in Whitechapel to hand out Army issued bibles and Christian leaflets, while asking to speak to the Imam. They have also staged protests by drinking alcohol outside mosques. Despite using Snatch Land Rovers during the patrols and dressing in matching green uniforms, described as ‘activist jackets’ by the party, Britain First deny that they intended to intimidate people with their actions.
The emergence of a number of, whilst smaller, more militant far-right organisations is indicative of a more general rightward shift in British politics, and how Walker adapts with this shift will no doubt be the indicator for his success within the BNP as well as that of the party itself.
You often hear it said how things aren’t the way they used to be, back when communities really were communities, where you knew everyone on your street by their first name and you had no qualms about leaving your door unlocked when you went to the shop. For residents in the area of Easton in Bristol it’s time to reclaim that sense of community.
Easton has recently become the location of the latest chapter of Acorn International, an organisation that builds grassroots community unions that seek to bring communities together in solidarity as they campaign in their local areas around issues that matter to them. Armed with a will for change a group of local residents hit the streets of Easton going from door to door talking to the people they met about their experiences and concerns and asking one simple question: If 100 of their neighbours would agree to the same, would they commit to attending a local forum hosted by Acorn? And they said yes!
On Friday 16th May 70 residents gathered in a local social centre where they spoke of their concerns around local schools to properties left as junkyards by absentee landlords, and from rip off tenancy fees to zero hours contracts. Through this discussion the first campaign was launched. The campaign has three clear goals:
1. Eliminate tenancy fees
2. Stop monthly rolling contracts for renters
3. Have letting agents and landlords give tenants the option for 3/5 year tenancies
Since that meeting ACORN member have been back out on the streets canvassing resident for support for their campaign to fight exploitative tenancy fees in the BS5 area. These fees, which are already illegal in Scotland, are used to fleece those already most vulnerable to the present housing crisis for work that would have to be provided anyway. Elsewhere in Europe the cost of paperwork is covered by the landlords who are able to make the money out of the transactions, but increasingly agencies are using gaps in the legislation to squeeze tenants for everything they can get.
Letting agents are key to this problem. Over 60% of tenancies involve a letting agent and 1-in-4 people in England feel they have been charged an unfair fee. In Easton fees are often £250-400 and some agents charge new fees of around £30 every 6 months. Not only that, but some letting agents encourage landlords to only sign contracts for 6 months to make it easier to evict tenants or hike-up rent at the drop of a hat. It also means that the agencies are able to charge a new batch of fees whenever a contract needs signing or renewing. Only having housing security for 6 months is not a decent way to live. Across Europe standard tenancies are 5 years long! Shorter tenancies lead to people moving house often and not being able to put down roots in their community.
The timing for this campaign couldn’t be better. The issues it raises are currently all over the national media. The Labour Party are putting an abolition of tenancy fees and 3 year fixed-term tenancy agreements in their manifesto. The current government have drafted a tenants’ charter aimed at increasing the rights of all renters. Shelter are running national, high publicity campaigns on exactly the same issues and Bristol Mayor George Ferguson has publicly backed them saying “Bristol City Council is serious about tackling poor standards of accommodation and poorly managed properties in Bristol’s private rented sector.”
Things are already looking positive in Easton too, one local agent already does not charge fees and another has suggested that they are receptive to it. As part of the campaign to fight exploitative tenancy fees a petition has been launched which campaigners hope will reach 1000 signatures. This petition will be presented to local agencies inviting them to scrap fees and drop the exploitative 6 month contracts. They will also be invited to explain themselves to residents at a public meeting. ACORN members and other residents will also be invited to give testimonies explaining how they have been exploited by agencies in the past. Campaigners are confident that the meeting will lead to a deal that works for the community not for private profits, but are committed to continuing to apply community pressure on those agencies that refuse to work with them.
Yesterday the New York Police Department launched a campaign on Twitter which invited people to tweet pictures of themselves with “New York’s finest” using the hashtag #mynypd to promote a supposed good relationship with the community.
The tweet that started it all.
The campaign however didn’t work out too well for the NYPD as thousands of users sent in pictures of brutality at the hands of NYPD. Commissioner William Bratton pledged to make the use of social media one of the cornerstones of the NYPD’s effort to engage with the community, appointing Zachary Tumin as deputy commissioner of strategic initiatives to oversee the effort. However when asked about the negative depiction of the NYPD Bratton responded saying that he welcomed both types of photos. He said the department welcomed “the extra attention.”
“Was that particular reaction from some of the police adversaries anticipated?” Mr. Bratton said. “To be quite frank, it was not, but at the same time it’s not going to cause us to change any of our efforts to be very active on social media”
By midnight on Tuesday, more than 70,000 people had tweeted about police brutality, ridiculing the NYPD for a social media disaster and recalling the names of people shot dead by police.
A controversial clothing brand strongly associated with the extreme right in Europe has opened a high street store in London.
Thor Steinar, the fashion label popular with hardline right wingers in Germany, has opened a shop in north London called the Viking Thor Shop – but locals may be unaware of its right-wing roots. The shop has been operating from Ballards Lane in North Finchley since late last month, bringing clothing heavily associated with European far-right street movements to the UK.
Whilst the stores owner claims not to have any links with the far right the arrival of the shop was welcomed by the white power website Stormfront, where users posted boasting that “London gets its first white nationalist clothing shop”. A number of users also pledged to visit the store.
The Thor Steinar brand has faced bans in the German Bundestag, in several football stadium and members of the far-right German National Democratic Party have been expelled from parliament for wearing the brand. Its clothes were banned outright in Germany in 2004 because of the logo’s similarity to symbols worn by the Nazi SS – but the company has rebranded since then.
In March 2012 the label drew global controversy when the company opened a shop called Brevik in Saxony. It was accused of naming the store after far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. The brand claimed it was named in honour of the Norwegian town of Brevik in Oslo but later changed the name and removed the sign. The Norwegian government also filed a complaint against the retailer over use of it’s national flag in February 2008.
Above the door at the north London Viking store, an ambiguous Wolfsangel-style Nordic rune is proudly displayed.
The company was launched in October 2002 and was initially based in Königs Wusterhausen, German. In 2009 it moved to Dubai – provoking outrage from some of its extreme right customers who threatened a boycott. The clothes regularly feature Vikings and Nordic themes – mythology which plays a central role in the extreme right’s racial purist views.
Thor Steinar shops in Germany have been repeatedly targeted by anti-fascist protests and repeatedly vandalised. Earlier this month in Hanover 350 protesters gathered outside a Thor Steinar store to protest against what they see as a “right wing lifestyle store”.
High street fashion giant Topman is once again making headlines for it's callous approach to design. This time instead of misogynistic t-shirts the retailer has been selling clothing emblazoned with Nazi insignia. The jacket in question, the £205 “grunge look” Horace hooded denim jacket featured an emblem worn by Second World War SS troops.
The ancient Norse odal rune, a symbol which like the swastika, was appropriated Adolf Hitler to symbolise his belief in a pure Aryan race. The symbol was worn by ethnic Germans of the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division in Croatia. It has also been adopted by neo-Nazi skinheads and right wing fascist groups. The men's clothing retailer, a part of Sir Philip Green's tax- dodging Arcadia group, apologised for the blunder after it was pointed out by an online shopper. The shopper, from Hove, East Sussex, posted a review pointing out the fashion faux pas on the Topman website. Talking to The Mirror he said: “A friend of mine who wears punk-style clothing shared the link with me on Facebook. When I looked more closely I saw the Nazi insignia.”
Adding: “When I checked to see if Topman had published my review I noticed they had withdrawn the jacket from sale." The jacket, part of the Horace fashion range made by an outside supplier, was only available online at Topman. A store spokesman said: “The jacket was not designed by Topman. We apologise for any offence caused.”
April 5th marked this year’s White Pride Day, an annual event where white separatists, ultranationalists and neo-Nazis come together to drink, shout and promote their racist bigotry. For the past few years the UK location for this event has been the Welsh city of Swansea with this area becoming a stronghold for the re-emerging National Front (NF).
The days leading up to this year’s event, running under the White Pride Worldwide banner, were marred by misinformation. Unite Against Fascism (UAF) an organisation which has been at the centre of broad left anti-fascism for the past ten years, were not only not to be seen on the day, but even cancelled their counter-demonstration under the mistaken belief that since the NF had refused either of the rallying points offered to them by the police, the Nazi demonstration would not go ahead. The cancellation came despite warnings from anti-fascist activists posting on the Swansea UAF Facebook page urging people to still come out as they rightly foresaw that the NF demonstration would still take place. The danger of cancelling the demo and declaring “victory” proved to be real – people who would have been out on the streets of Swansea chose to stay at home believing the demo was off.
Luckily not all had taken the day so lightly. Around 100 anti-fascists from groups ranging from the Socialist Party to Antifa as well as unaffiliated members of the local community came down to Castle Square to make clear that fascists are not welcome in Swansea. This view however was not one shared by the local constabulary, nor by several local watering holes. For the NF and their friends, the day started in Yates’s bar on the corner of Castle Square as they knocked back the lager and jeered at the assembling counter-demo. Before long the excitement got too much for one bonehead, who began proudly waving his white power flag before being told by police to put it away. Once drinks had been downed, the 40-50 fascists out to protest were escorted up to near the old castle for their demonstration, where they listened to a mixture of speeches about how proud they were to be white and how hard it is with all the oppression white people apparently suffer on the basis of their skin colour. The Nazis punctuated the tedium by singing racist songs and hurling abuse at the ‘commie scum’ that made up the counter-protest.
Amongst the crowd were a number of white power flags, a Scottish flag, a Yorkshire flag, the flag of the National Bolshevik Group and a flag bearing the symbol of Greek fascist party Golden Dawn. As the NF began to leave the demo zone a scuffle broke out during which one of the white power flags was liberated from its bonehead owner, an incident that saw its captor spend the next four hours in a cell, but luckily leave with a simple caution. During this incident a second arrest was made after an anti-fascist made contact with one of the bonehead demonstrators only to be told “You can’t hit me, I’m an undercover police officer!” Although one NF member found himself in handcuffs, this was only a temporary measure while they waited for calm (during which time he stood laughing with the police) before being let go. From here the fascists returned to drinking; heading for Ice Bar on Swansea’s main bar crawl, the aptly named Wine Street.
Despite refusing to accept either protest location offered by South Wales Police, the NF had full facilitation from the police the entire day. When fascists receive this help from the state it only serves to build their confidence. “I personally witnessed them shouting at a Muslim couple, who had joined the anti-fascist demonstration,” Al Brown of South Wales Anti-Fascist Action (SWAFA) told radical news website SchNEWS, “They called the man a “paki” as police officers looked on. The cops did nothing to try to stop the abuse, and wouldn’t listen to the man’s wife when she tried to complain about it.”
In a similar incident a BME man was subjected to verbal and physical abuse by an NF member outside Ice Bar and was told by police that should calm down. Across the road in the Adelphi I witnessed another NF member give a Nazi salute as he and four other went to join their fellow boneheads. After Ice Bar, the NF were escorted up to another bar – Static on Kingsway, where anti-fascists kept watch behind a police cordon. A phone blockade was organised and the bar’s management in Bristol responded by travelling to Swansea in order to have the racist crowd removed. The NF were then quickly marched by police to the station and made to get on a train.
“South Wales Anti-Fascist Action had a 30-strong bloc and we opposed them every step of the way. It seemed like some kind of pathetic racist pub crawl facilitated by the police, who seemed content to turn a blind eye to all the harassment the NF were causing to Swansea residents. Officers could even be seen exchanging handshakes with NF supporters outside Static. It’s really troubling that they would fraternise in this way with people who were shouting racist insults and threats of violence during the day,” said Al Brown,
“I don’t think Unite Against Fascism can take any credit at all for the counter-demonstration on Saturday. They took the fascists’ bait and called off their demo, then ignored other groups who had assurances it was still happening. But SWAFA, Swansea Trades Council and a lot of interested local residents went ahead without them. We want to thank everyone who took part, whatever their background, because we know that true strength lies in diversity.”
Unite Against Fascism have since put out a statement telling of their disgust at the state facilitating the Nazis’ demo, congratulating those who did turn out to see them off and interestingly, despite not being present, still feeling the need to cook the numbers. The statement also finished by promising that regardless of what is said by police or council next year they shall hold a march through Swansea. Let’s support that call and make sure UAF keeps its promise.
As the sun shone across Ilford, north east London, on 25 March the roads that lead to the City of London Cemetery were a sight to behold as hundreds gathered to pay their respects to RMT leader Bob Crow, who died suddenly last week of a suspected heart attack. Trade unionists and activists displaying hundreds of colourful union banners as well as flags from groups such as the Stop the War Coalition which Crow supported, lined the route from near the 52-year-old’s house in Woodford.
Crow’s coffin was carried in a horse-drawn carriage, in traditional East End style. The four horses were dressed in blue and white plumage, the colours of Crow’s beloved Millwall Football Club. As the hearse approached the cemetery mourners clapped and cheered chanting, “Workers united will never be defeated.” Some even sang The Red Flag and The Internationale as they moved from the sides to join the procession to the cemetery gates.
This past week tributes to Bob have poured out across the labour movement. GMB union leader Paul Kenny said, “Bob was an absolute giant. He was remarkable fighter for working people, but he was also passionate about protecting the health and safety of the public, which he never got any credit for. He was a funny, witty, interesting man, and the union movement – in fact the whole country – will be a duller place without him.”
RMT president Peter Pinkney said, “Bob’s death leaves a massive gap in the lives of everyone who was fortunate enough to know him and represents a huge loss to the trade union and labour movement both in this country and internationally, and specifically, for the RMT members Bob led with such stunning success.”
Tributes will also be paid on May Day, with a special event being planned in London
Thirteen months since the brutal attack on the Freedom bookshop in London the Freedom Collective release a statement that announces possibly their biggest news in 128 years.
A STATEMENT FROM THE FREEDOM COLLECTIVE
Published March 10, 2014
Since Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism first appeared in 1886 it has been in the form of a newspaper to be sold. Now the Freedom Collective has decided that we shall move content online accompanied by a freesheet after publication of the upcoming second issue of 2014.
We have come to realise that a sold hardcopy newspaper is no longer a viable means of promoting the anarchist message. Despite a huge publicity boost to Freedom following the firebomb attack last year (shop sales rose 50%) there has not been a corresponding increase in distribution of the paper. Only 29 shops, social centres and individuals now sell it and the number of paying subscribers has fallen to 225.As a result annual losses now amount to £3,500, an unsustainable level for our shoestring budget.
Readers will have noticed that the paper has struggled to come out on time for some while. An underlying problem has been a lack of capacity to sustain it. We had hoped that Freedom would be adopted as THE paper of the anarchist movement. Despite a great deal of goodwill from anarchist groups and individuals over the years, sadly this has not been the case.
Although Freedom Press has changed from a political group with a particular point of view to a resource for anarchism as a whole, we have not managed to shake the legacy of the past and get different groups to back it as a collective project. We hope an online version and freesheet will make that possible.
Subscribers will be offered a refund or book in lieu but we are happy to accept donations towards the costs of the new project.
Charlotte Dingle will remain as editor and of course the shop, publishing and book distribution will continue as normal. As will the use of Angel Alley for meetings, events, offices, postal address and drop-in protest advice.
The print version could not have continues so long without the generosity of Aldgate Press, currently amounting to a subsidy of nearly £10,000 a year. They have very kindly agreed to print a regular freesheet/news compilation to enable us to keep in touch with our readers who don’t have the internet, and a special final edition, which will be released for the London Anarchist Bookfair in October.
Plastic Bag Radio is a show on the University of the West of England’s very own Hub Radio. The show, hosted post-graduate students Sam grist and Matthew Hollinshead alongside former UWE student Samir Seddougui, airs every Tuesday 3pm-4pm. The show mixes philosophical, political and historical discussion with a great selection of music. In light of the fact that UWE were playing host to the DPRTE arms fair this week’s show takes a look at the insidious relationship between universities and the defence industry. During the second half of the show our hosts welcomed on Holly Rea from the Campaign Against Arms Trade to find out more.
Plastic Bag: First of all, I know Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) have done research on the money that arms companies give to universities, could you tell us a bit about the relationships between these companies and universities?
Holly Rae: It works in two ways; on the one hand you have universities investing financially into arms companies because it is seen as being a very profitable industry even though when you look at the facts and figures it really isn’t. For instance we just found out through a freedom of information request that Trinity College at Cambridge University have £250,000 worth of shares in Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest arms company. Then the way that arms companies will feed back into universities is that they will fund scholarships with the insinuation that these students will go on to work for an arms company for a certain number of years or that the arms companies will be able to heavily influence the academic programs. So you will often find that students going into engineering jobs, though now BAE are recruiting students all academic disciplines studying humanities as well as sciences, for example in Manchester there are students doing research on laser cleaning which doesn’t seem that insidious on the surface, however the feedback from this was used by the arms trade. So you have a situation where students are doing research for arms companies and the military for free.
PB: About a year ago someone wrote a piece on drones and ethics which argued that they are more ethical because they kill less people. As if, when you take the total number of people that can be involved in a combat situation, any way of reducing that number is seen as an ethical benefit. It just so happens that this was keeping American soldiers out and that was the key. The author of this piece, as it happens, was a philosopher funded by the American Navy. Which seems hilarious, well I mean some of us here study philosophy and the idea of being funded by the MoD just seems bizarre. So, you were talking about how arms companies have a huge amount of influence and how they can recruit people because they have funded them to go through university and then universities are investing in that. Is it simply syllabus control that they have? I know that HP provide a lot of the software used by Israeli Defence Force as well as other western militaries and they own sections of the [Frenchay] campus we are on right now. I was wondering though if there are other universities in the UK where arms companies have more direct control or just UWE.
HR: No it is everywhere. For instance Cardiff University has its own naval ship, which goes out to conflict, in the dock.
PB: The University has its own ship? That is so terrible.
HR: Yeah. In Portsmouth the university has just won a bid to be able to oversee the course at the first military technical college in Oman. So you have a very military and arms trade orientated focus at many universities. In fact 50% of scientists go into the arms industry after graduating and this is because of the influence had by arms companies. I know a lot of people will say “Oh yeah, but they are giving out scholarships”, but the money for these scholarships comes from the government, it’s not businesses putting up their own money. It’s being diverted through the government and it is the government then influencing what jobs they want people to go into, through what I see as very illegitimate means.
PB: It seems entirely that that undue corporate control, which is a massive understatement for the level of control that the arms industry has got, but it does tie into that idea of removing steadily any kind of democratic control of any public institutions like universities. So I think it is very import to connect this kind of stuff to attacks on fees etc. In fact today there is a national day of action against fees and various other issues, but we of course have this demonstration today and tomorrow against the arms trade on our campus. We still know very little about what will go on in that building besides a lot of very dangerous men in really expensive suits talking about finding fun ways to kill people. It’s definitely going to be a big event, we saw on the website it’s described as one of the main defence procurement events of the year in the UK.
HR: Definitely. In September we had Defence, Security and Equipment International (DSEi), which is one of the world’s largest arms fairs, in London and I imagine that a lot of companies that met there will be following up at this event. I was just doing some research and apparently the group who are setting up the event have said that they won’t have any form of munitions, weaponry, artillery or hazardous military equipment on site as though that somehow excuses the fact that that is what they are going to be talking about, those are the deals they are going to be making. Just because you don’t physically have the guns there, they do at DSEi and you’ll see civil servants playing with guns and grenades and things. It’s quite bizarre.
PB: Yeah, when we were trying to find propaganda and photos we found this picture of this incredibly geeky looking guy in a suit that didn’t quite fit right, but being so excited by this sniper rifle. It was so terrifyingly Freudian. So we are not talking about there being loads of guns on campus, this is much more of a networking and brochures type event. Do you feel that there is an explicit push by arms companies to keep the guns away in an effort to make it seem more of a business event?
HR: Definitely. You would never hear an arms dealer talking about the ethics of what they do, when you are talking about how many people they kill it’s in terms of efficiency, it’s in terms of how easily you can suppress a crowd or a riot and how you can do that cheaply. It is very far removed from the actual horrors of conflict and I think that’s why CAAT and other international solidarity groups work really hard to take the photos and do the research to ensure that the human aspect of conflict isn’t forgotten cause I think that it is all very easy to get swept up in this boys and their toys mentality.
PB: Just the rhetoric of arms companies takes the human aspect away from what’s actually happening. You were talking about suppressing riots; the UK particularly has connections with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia known to be extremely bad on those sorts of issues.
HR: It’s ridiculous. We currently have David Cameron in Sri Lanka talking about human rights and yet he is in the middle of a tour of Saudi Arabia and the UAE trying to sell them fighter jets. So he only cares about human rights when in suites the pocket of arms dealers.
PB: Yeah, exactly. Ok, so there will possibly be some disruption happening on campus today and tomorrow, what kind of security would you imagine demonstrators to be encountering? Is it fair to say that these companies have been ramping up their security?
HR: It is difficult to say, we have found that the policing at first at DSEi was very light-handed, it was only after we had been there a few hours that you started to see more police to the point where there was probably a police officer for every person at the occupation outside DSEi. I can’t imagine it will be like that on a university campus. They may bring in private security to boost up the campus security, but one of the things that universities do when putting on these kinds of conferences is putting a lot of pride on their own security. That’s part of business and in some ways that is why universities have been clamping down on student protest because it is bad for their business. If they are not in the public eye seen as being able to control students, who of course in the public eye are seen as being a bit frivolous and silly then that may negatively persuade them. So you may see quite bad uses of security, but I don’t think it would be anything to worry about as such. I don’t know if you saw all the videos of the security guards in Sheffield?
PB: Yeah, that was at an engineering employment fair it was pretty intense. So that was a ‘dying’ action, people went in, pretended to die and be as obtrusive as possible and eventually private security came in and manhandled them out, which is obviously not what they want to do because it is not very good press. But as you said if they can keep students in line then it kind of helps their image if they are going to be having this kind of employment fair, selling off their students etc. But this also means that the stakes for student resistance over these kinds of issues is a lot higher. If we can actually say well we can’t do it, we could lose them a hell of a lot of money and that is basically how you shift management. I didn’t realise how useful direct action on campus could be.
HR: I’ve got two small anecdotes on that point. The first; on Thursday I was in Portsmouth because BAE Systems were putting on one of their lavish nights of recruitment where basically they will get a bit of prosecco in and sit down with a glossy magazine telling people how they are defending the world etc. And it turned out that the event got cancelled and one of the people who were part of the group I was with was volunteering with the company that was putting on the event and he said that he had received an email informing him that one of the key speakers had pulled out after hearing that there was a student protest planned. So that is an example of how even the threat of something can have an effect. There was another student group, I forget which one, a couple of years ago who were trying to get a meeting with their Vice Chancellor, but every time they called him up the secretary just palmed them off, so in the end they wrote him a letter saying if you do not meet with us then we will sabotage this corporate event that is going on. And so they had a meeting within two days. I think that it is important not to underestimate the power of student protest.
PB: And I think you can almost see that a little bit. I was looking at the western eye, which is the UWE student newspaper, and the editor had written an article on the arms fair and it’s got a quote from a university spokesman who was saying that the university would not expect protest at this type of event and any protest there is he hopes would be responsible. So I think that that shows that they are a bit worried that something could disrupt their event, which obviously a lot of people have put a lot of money into when you look at the £6,000 costs for a table. What is interesting about this event specifically, and we have been talking about the more explicit links between the arms trade and universities, this is literally them renting out the building, a building that perhaps wasn’t bought in the best interest of the students, but that’s another question. So the university is holding this line of we are renting out the building, we condone the arms trade and so they can remain neutral and at the same time completely complicit. It’s just business.
HR: I’ll believe that they are neutral when they put on an event for renewable technology or sustainable energy.
PB: The thing is, they have had that kind of stuff. UWE is very involved in trying to present itself as an ethical institution which means that the fact that it has got major arms research labs, exists on land previously owned and a lot of it still owned by major military industrial contactors and its whole edifice is built up on being “better together” and talking about inclusivity and equality, but this is built up on the whole military industrial complex.
HR: Definitely, and that’s how the arms companies manage to put forward this legitimate face. I think especially it is quite sad to hear that UWE, even though it’s got this really ethical facade on it that it is based on this fundamentally awful industry. It could be a forerunner, there are universities that do have ethical standards for who they allow to rent out their buildings and things like that and they could really push that and though I hate to use business language that could be a unique selling point for them and a really positive way to go forward, but instead they choose to legitimise the arms trade by maintaining this facade of being an ethical place, but yet still inviting these people onto their campus.
PB: UWE was one of the first universities to go for the £9,000 fees, in fact our Vice Chancellor was one of the guys who drew up the Universities UK policy on increasing fees, they have a massive problem with not paying the Bristol Living Wage, and the unions on campus are fighting for a decent wage. So specifically for students weighing up whether or not to come down to the demonstration in ten minutes the fact that the same universities business policy allows it to not pay cleaners properly and allow murderers onto campus are not disconnected issues. The fact that we are having to pay more fees and having fewer lectures is not a disconnected issue, its part of a wider marketisation of the university that needs to be challenged at every step. And this is one that we can be really powerful in. UWE cares so much about its press, it rates one positive tweet about UWE £5, I saw a spreadsheet of media reports, but an inch of positive press is worth £1000 to them. So they have this stuff quantified and the bigger noise we can make about this in the media and also if we can embarrass them in front of their defence contractor friends then that really shifts the balance in favour of students and workers on campus and that is something that we shouldn’t under estimate. OK we only have a couple of minutes left, can you tell people if they want to get involved with Campaign Against Arms Trade how they go about that.
HR: OK, so obviously go and support the demonstration and protest tomorrow, that would sound like the first thing to do. You can find us on Facebook as well as the CAAT website, but then we have the sub-Facebook which is just for universities so that is a really good place to connect with other students. On our website there are loads of resources for if you want to start your own campaign. It sounds like UWE would really respond well to an ethical investments campaign. So I think that would be something to maybe start looking into and maybe get some freedom of information requests out to see how deep these relationships lie and just generally get in touch with us at CAAT, you can give me an email at universities@caat.org.uk and I will get back to you. But just have a few meetings, get people together, they don’t have to be stuffy and boring, you can do them in a fun way and just get some campaign momentum on campus and use your own power to influence your university.
PB: Awesome, thank you so much.
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