MP dismisses fees rise as ‘a threat to the education of working-class people’

Published: 3 December, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

Corbyn supports students on the day that court bans sit-in

LABOUR MP Jeremy Corbyn visited a student sit-in at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in Bloomsbury last week – minutes after the High Court granted the university an injunction against the protesters.

The Islington North MP addressed 100 students packed into the university’s Brunei Gallery last Thursday in defiance of security staff barring people from the building. 

As he spoke, minor scuffles broke out when students tried to get into the building.

The building has been occupied since Monday of last week. Students are demanding that the university’s principal, Paul Webley, issues a statement condemning any rise in tuition fees. 

Mr Corbyn told the students the proposed fees rise was “a threat to the education of working-class people, of people from backgrounds that have never been into further education”. 

On Wednesday, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and political campaigner Tariq Ali visited the occupation, which was continuing yesterday (Thursday) in defiance of the injunction. 

Mr Livingstone told students: “Don’t stop protesting and fighting for change so that your generation does not make the mistake mine made of assuming we are on our way there and relaxing a bit. We weren’t aware of the fact we were starting to lose ground.” 

He added: “What I think Cameron and Osborne are very cynically doing is using this panic about the debt to drive through cuts that Mrs Thatcher could only have wet dreams about.”