Ben Lewis reports from last Friday’s demonstration in London to oppose cuts in student grants.

“You’re lucky you’re late, there was hardly anyone here at the time we were meant to start”. This is how one member of the Socialist Worker’s Party greeted me on arrival at the ‘emergency’ demonstration called by new SWP student front Another Education is Possible. There was not much of a hello from the others present either. At that point – half an hour after the demo was due to start – there were 40 people there at most. Rather despondent, everybody stood around wondering what to do next. SWP student organiser Rob Owen started shouting into a megaphone, but it was not having much of an effect on the mood of the masses. Some confused public school kids in bright purple blazers came up, wondering what was happening. They weren’t the only ones asking that question…

Just don't mention Respect

I need to explain who ‘everybody’ is in this context, as it was unfortunately not a throng of angry, potentially revolutionary youth keen to snap up revolutionary propaganda and get involved. It consisted instead of the ‘usual suspects’. The majority were SWP members; the AWL, Revo and I completed the student left spectrum. I was accompanied by a comrade who wanted to leaflet for Hands Off the People of Iran, but he soon left to carry on with uni work once he realised he would be leafleting the ‘factions’ as opposed to the ‘masses’. I was tempted to go with him. At one point it looked as if we were all going to be sent packing anyway; the relatively large posse of coppers, spurred on by the fact that nobody had actually turned up, were giving the organisers much grief. In all fairness though they held their ground, and with our ranks swelled by a small group of anarchists and latecomers we went  forth onto the streets of London, much to the bemusement of onlookers. The great thing about a small demo though (by this point about 50-60 people) is that you can be quite nimble on your feet. So it came to pass that the crafty leaders of the march sold the cops a dummy, and in a militant gesture to the world working class actually walked on the road around a roundabout! This was serious stuff.

Slogans chanted at the demo were very much of the cut and paste variety – “you say cutback we say fightback”, “we want them all to see, education must be free” and did not inspire much anger or enthusiasm amongst those present. Something of interest though was the relative openness of the SWP members in talking and discussing politics at the end – something I have not experienced for a while. Maybe it was because there was actually no basis to the usual argument of ‘let’s stop talking about stupid things like the popular frontist nature of Respect and its relationship to Marxism, as I have to go and speak to all the angry people out there’ etc. Maybe it was just because they were bored and wanted a bit of a bun fight. Whatever the reason, I had good discussions with some SWPers and exchanged views in a comradely manner.

Having said that, one did say that the CPGB had issued death threats to SWP members in the Socialist Alliance. A quite bizarre allegation which says a lot about the political culture of the SWP; slander used to isolate members from debate and maintain ideological purity. I find striking the disdain with which ordinary members are treated in the hope of creating so-called ‘activists’, i.e. leaflet fodder for the current scheme of the SWP leadership. When asked whether they had an internal discussion list to talk politics, or whether it was possible to organise into permanent factions and hold the leadership to account, the members I spoke with seemed genuinely convinced that such channels did exist. They do not, of course – something which I pointed out. Such was the openness of conversation that one member then argued the SWP “needed people like me” who would stand up and argue for change. I politely pointed out that my chances of being allowed in are roughly the same as anti-imperialist David Broder had in getting elected to the Executive Committee of the AWL not so long ago.

It does not seem too cynical to suggest that the real ‘emergency’ this demo was addressing was the urgent need to find something -anything- for SWP students to do after the collapse of Student Respect. Yes, the demo was on a Friday evening, called at very short notice and opposed the cutting of a grant that most students will drink away before even knowing it exists. But comrades, was it really worth it? It could have been an afternoon spent drawing together 50 leading comrades together in order to discuss some politics, learn from each other how to overcome the ridiculous state of the student left and talk about future work. I often wonder how small and politically moribund the left has to get before it realises that it is time to unite our amateur and feuding forces around the political strategy of Marxism. Of course, it would be great if Santa really would come this year, but such things are not granted. They are fought for. To quote Rosa Luxemburg in reference to her frustrating and at times fruitless struggles with Bernstein in the early 20^th century, every historical period has to be durchgefressen – eaten through.