Shut Down London: All Out 8th Dec and 9th Dec!

SHUT DOWN LONDON!

All Out Wed 8th Dec! and 9th Dec!

Bring Down the Coalition Government

Build an Independent, Integrated, Mass, Youth and Student Led Civil Rights Movement

Fight to Win! Join the struggles of student movement to the power of oppressed communities

Stop the cuts and fee hikes – Save the EMA – Fight for free, equal, quality education for all – Fight racism & anti-immigrant bigotry – Stop the deportations – Sanctuary campuses now – Full Citizenship Rights for all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers – We are all the New Britain – No victimizations of activists – Stop scapegoating the black, Asian, Muslim & immigrant communities for the economic and social crisis – Make the Equality Act Real!

Our new student movement is so close to winning our first victory, we can almost taste it. On Thursday, 9th December, Parliament will vote on the Government’s proposal to triple university fees while continuing to slash programs. Our movement has the power to win this vote. If we continue to build militant mass actions, reach out to and draw in the most oppressed communities, call on school students to walk out and commit to making Wednesday 8th December and Thursday 9th December our biggest, boldest, bravest days of mass action yet, we win.

If we shut down London and other cities and towns on 8th December there is a very good chance that the vote on the fee hikes will be put off until January. This should be our main tactical objective for this week because getting the vote delayed will convey to the whole society the growing power of our movement and the increased vulnerability of the Government. If we focus on making 9th December our only all out day of action, we increase the possibility of the fee hikes passing and we risk turning our action into a morale protest action of that defeat. We want our Days of Action to express the reality of our increasing  power and ability to set the economic, social and political agenda of our society.

Our new movement has met every political test we have faced thus far. We have successfully mobilized tens of thousands of students and youth to march, walk out and demonstrate on three national days of action. We have stormed Government buildings, built occupations on campuses across the country, and grown accustomed to ignoring the shrill denunciations and/or pathetic pleas for respectability of timid and vacillating student, political and university leaders and spokespersons, some of whom we once regarded as our representatives. We have kept pushing forward, leaving behind those who shudder at the power and anger of the oppressed while bringing along instead, those who share our hate of the suffocating hypocrisy and cynicism of the current social order and feel our urgent desire for freedom.

Police tactics aimed at demoralizing us and limiting the power of our movement have failed. We have turned kettles into raves one week and the next week defeated the police plans by charting new routes for our march that kept us free of kettles and able to improvise new tactics to shut down central London. Each week we are gaining strength and unity and accumulating the tactical know how to win.

Our enemies are divided and in disarray. The Lib-Dems ran for office promising to oppose fee hikes and to fight instead, to make higher education free. The Lib-Dems have obviously betrayed their base which is understandably livid. The anger and frustration of the base is reflected by the total chaos and fragmentation of the Lib-Dems in Parliament. Seventeen, Lib-Dem MP’s are saying they will vote against the cuts. Vince Cable, a leading Lib-Dem MP, and Parliament’s Business Secretary, is responsible for the Government’s fee hike and education cuts proposal. Cable has offered to abstain rather than vote in favor of his own plan, to “restore Party unity.” The Party is so weak and fractured that it is scared to even meet as a body in order to resolve how to vote.

If the Lib-Dems adopt the cowardly policy of abstention, the Tories have enough votes to pass the fee hikes. The only way for the Lib-Dems to avoid committing political suicide is to vote no on the fee hikes. The reason why the Lib-Dems are resisting doing the obvious is because a “no” vote would almost certainly bring down the Government. However given how little authority the Lib-Dems now possess, it is hard to imagine the Government staying in power through the budget process.

Our movement is gaining broad support from other governmental bodies who do not want take on our movement. The Welsh Assembly has already said it will not implement the fee hikes if they are passed.  The Assembly has voted to cover the rising costs of fees itself rather than to pass the burden on to individual students. Students from Wales will pay the same fees for education that they are now paying no matter what Parliament decides. After students stormed the Scottish Parliament, as part of the 24th November Day of Action, the Scottish Parliament reiterated its commitment to free public higher education.

The Government’s whole strategy of repudiating sixty years of progress through the elimination of our most cherished egalitarian social policies and programs is vulnerable and can be defeated. We can bring down the government and place Britain back on the road to progress. To win we must go all out now.

On 8th December and 9th December our aim is to shut down London and other cities. The best way to stop Parliament from voting for the fee hikes on 9th December is for our movement to assert our fierce power on 8th December. We need our movement in a high state of continuous mobilization starting on the 8th Dec. If we can force a postponement of the vote on the fee hikes until after the Christmas break we will have a month to use the tremendous authority students are gaining through out the society to expand our movement in scope and depth of commitment. The NUS and other groups are calling for a lobby of Parliament, which is a waste of time and resources. Others are calling for a march to Parliament on 9th December. This is only a good proposal if we have large enough numbers to defeat police efforts to kettle us.

If on 9th December we are large enough and strong enough to take over Parliament and assert our will we should do so. If this is not possible we must not squander our action being stuck in a kettle. Our young movement is just beginning to gain the organizational capacity to function as an emerging peoples army which is capable of winning tactical victories against the better armed and better trained army of the rich, the police. We will know on the Days of Action if we have the strength to take over Parliament. If our stated tactical aim is to shut down London and to stop business as usual throughout the country we will have the flexibility to adopt a range of tactics to win.  Students walking out and marching in any part of London or other cities or towns will know even if they cannot get to London or to it’s centre, that they should take action where they are. Strong local actions, especially those that draw in angry youth and community members from black, Asian and other oppressed communities, can convey the movement’s determination to win and refusal to accept more cuts, more hopelessness, and new divide-and-conquer schemes. Close a road, block a bridge, march through the black, Asian or immigrant communities of Brixton, Tottenham, Harrow, Tower Hamlets, Hackney or somewhere else and draw the most oppressed communities into our movement. The more our movement is led by those who have everything to gain and nothing to lose the stronger we will be and the more likely we will be to prevail.

WE NEED OUR BEST LEADERS TO STEP FORWARD NOW and JOIN THE MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE

Losing is not an option. Our “leaders”, who are equivocating, hesitating, or expressing “battle fatigue”, born from the fear of winning, must be ignored or swept aside. Now, is not the time to return to lame, sure-to-lose lobbying efforts. We need more anger and indignation not more respectability to win. The tremendous authority and popular support our movement has is based on our boldness in action, unwavering optimism, obvious joy and courage to tell the truth and our rejection of the cynicism and pessimism of mainstream politics. We cannot afford to demoralize ourselves, or those who look to us for hope and inspiration. Those of us who have embraced and loved the actions and have savored each of our tactical victories and analyzed how and why we are winning, must step forward and assume leadership of our new movement now. The best leaders in action must now consciously embrace the task of being the overall leaders of our movement.

Movement for Justice is the only organization that understands that to win we must unite the students’ struggles to the power and will to fight of Britain’s most oppressed communities. For the last thirty years, youth led urban mass actions, concentrated in black and Asian communities, have been our most powerful weapon to achieve progress. To defeat the barrage of cuts we are facing we will need to unite our struggles in a mass integrated student and youth led civil rights movement which has the social power to beat the rich and powerful forces that we are battling against.  We agree with every organization that seeks the support of the unions to advance our struggle. However, we think the best way to restore the fighting spirit of the unions and to build the confidence of a new layer of militant union leaders is to build our movement now and prove that we can beat the rich and powerful through our independent mass mobilizations.

Movement for Justice exists to unite, train and build the collective leadership of those committed to winning and strengthening our movement. We are committed to increasing the political consciousness of the oppressed on how much power we actually possess, and to wield our power to win. We are committed to winning control of our destinies and to building a new and better society that reflects our values. We believe that restoring our society’s prosperity and dignity requires ending racism, sexism, immigrant bashing and anti-gay bigotry that prevents the unity needed for progress. We urge all of those who share our vision to join the Movement for Justice, so that we can build the power of our new movement and make our vision for Britain real.

Call/txt:  07930 30 22 63; email: mail@movementforjustice.org.uk

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