LSBU occupation victory as management overturns anti-cuts group ban

After 51 hours of occupying the language centre at London South Bank University the students finally walked out victorious after the management buckled under the pressure of growing student support.

Earlier that day teams of occupiers had been out on campus rallying student support and offering a free breakfast to all students and staff in the occupied space, this provided a great opportunity to get the message out to the wider student body and paid off massively. By midday the number of supporters of the occupation and those willing to participate had grown dramatically.

Faced with the fact that the occupation wasn’t fizzling out as they had anticipated the university management panicked and gave in to a good number of the occupiers demands including the right for the anticuts group, Defend LSBU! Defend Education!, to organise on campus and book rooms, a public mass meeting between the vice-chancellor and students, discussion on the return of emergency loan facility, second language provision and no repercussions for those involved in the activity.

This is an astounding victory considering that managements preferred way of dealing with student dissent in the past has been to ignore, and then ban it! The fact that the occupation forced management to back down proves the effectiveness of direct action over simple petitions and protests.

LSBU looks to be a guinea pig for the governments planned education reforms which means that the student and staff fightback has taken on an even greater importance, the beating of the ban and the forcing of management to start talking is a victory not only for LSBU students but those of every other university.

We marched to the main administration building to show management that this isn’t the end, but in fact the beginning.