Tag Archives: Brexit

PUT IT TO THE PEOPLE MARCH REPORTS

A MILLION WAYS TO BE CR-EU-L

Lancaster, both the University and the town, seemed to be well represented on the ‘Put it to the People’ March on 23 March, not least judging by the cheerful but slightly sleepy crowd of a dozen or so protestors gathered at Lancaster station at around 8:30 in the morning. The train was already packed, and picked up more protestors at each mainline station (though surprisingly few in Preston).

It was only when the train arrived in London, however, that the true scale of the impending march became apparent. Converging on Mayfair in all directions, blue and yellow garments of all kinds, cardboard signs on wooden poles, numerous banners and many, many flags were very much in evidence, as were a number of extremely silly hats.

Your subtext correspondent made his way to the start of the protest at Park Lane – after a brief but necessary brunch – only to find it… well, rather full of people. It took around an hour to get from Marble Arch to the other end of the street, and then a further three hours to get as far as Trafalgar Square (normally a 10-minute walk), despite niftily overtaking a mobile disco, a samba band and all manner of other protestors. By this point, the speeches at Parliament Square where well and truly over, despite the vast majority of marchers never getting there.

As is becoming the norm for events of this type, the best slogans and banners have been widely shared on social media. Your correspondent’s personal favourites, however, included:
– the child brandishing an evidently self-made banner proclaiming that ‘Brexit is poo poo butt face’ in bright colours, bringing some much needed gravity to the political discourse around the topic;
– the two adjacent signs with bright green cut-out pictures of salad leaves that said ‘Lettuce Romaine’ and ‘Don’t lettuce leaf’;
– ‘Article 50 does not spark joy’ next to a picture of Marie Kondo;
– The blue sign splattered with yellow paint that read ‘Pollocks to Brexit’;
– The rather dark ‘Dear Dignitas, do you do countries?’;
– And the ever so subtle ‘Frontières sans médicins’.

The mood was a strange mixture of ebullient, joyous and also angry – but not in a red-faced, shouty way. People were laughing, smiling at each other’s placards, and generally having a good time, while their anger was clearly focussed at the people they saw as having got the country into its current predicament.

The absolute highlight of the march for this correspondent, however, had to be the piper marching with the SNP London branch playing ‘Ode to Joy’. What could be a more evocative argument against Brexit than the European anthem, written in Vienna by a German composer of Flemish extraction, commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London and played on Scottish bagpipes?

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LANCASHIRE AND YORKSHIRE EU-NITED AT LAST

Contributed article by Jenny Watts

I was unable to attend the People’s Vote March for health reasons, however, this topic remains very important to me. As a cancer patient the long term impact of Brexit on the NHS is rather alarming. I belong to a local cross-party activism group (Lancaster for Europe, find us on Twitter or Facebook) and they showed me how to donate money to cover the cost of a place, so that another student from Lancaster could attend. It was great watching the Lancaster and Yorkshire flags later on the news. Very encouraging to see the red and white roses!
 
The following is an interview with my Yorkshire-based parents, who were able to attend.
 
Q: Can you tell me what motivated you to get up at 4:30am to catch a coach departing from Hull on March 23rd?
Geoff: I was at the end of my tether! What else could I do? No one was listening to the Remain Team, or challenging the Leave lies.
Gwyneth: I wanted to stand up and be counted. When it all started back in 2016, I was really upset. But then I thought, hang on, let’s give the Leavers a chance; it might work. However, nothing I have seen, or read, has convinced me that it will actually be good for the majority of the country. I can see how it benefits billionaires though! That pesky new EU law on tax avoidance, eh?
 
Q: Your placards talk about honesty, do you feel deceived?
Gwyneth: Not now, personally; I hate being told lies, but I like to check stuff for myself. That lie about having to join the Euro for example, or Turkey joining the EU, or all the wonderful new trade deals…
Geoff: I am a retired police custody sergeant. Never enjoyed being lied to, and if I had practised a hundredth of as much deception professionally as this crew on my placard, I would have been sacked. Rightly so.

Q: What was the atmosphere like during the journey?
Gwyneth: Subdued, a bit tense, we didn’t know anybody or what to expect.
Geoff: Desperately short of sleep.

Q: Would you say you have a history of attending demonstrations in London?
Geoff: Never done anything like it.
Gwyneth: I’ve always been interested in human rights and welfare. As a young mum I stood for election as a Liberal for the local council, but this was my first big march. As a student in Manchester I went on demos, but only because I fancied the organiser!

Q: What happened during the march?
Geoff: Lots of chat and banter with other Yorkshire groups, making very, very slow progress towards Parliament Square. Never been in such a huge crowd, never seen such a crowd on TV, and so much warmth, good humour and anger being expressed in a very British way. Very heartening.
Gwyneth: Two and a half hours after joining at Marble Arch, we were still dancing down Park Lane – literally! We were joined by various bands, and it resembled a festival when the sun came out. We had to turn back at the end of Piccadilly about 4:30pm, to return to our coach, and thousands of people were still marching, following the route to parliament. It seemed wrong to go against this tide, but we’d made our point.

Q: Do you think you will be attending marches in the future?
Geoff: Let’s hope I won’t have to.
Gwyneth: For this cause? YES!

Q: What advice do you have for those joining large demonstrations?
Geoff: Essentials – comfortable shoes, water bottle, and a sense of humour. Stick anything relevant to you on your placard, and go with the flow. Expect lies about the size of the crowd…
Gwyneth: Do it! Always decorate both sides of your placard, collect photos of the wittiest slogans, meet lovely people, realise you’re not alone.

HEATON, HEAT OFF

A few readers may still have distant glimmers of a memory of Chris Heaton-Harris, the Conservative MP who tried to force universities to reveal which nasty academics were poisoning the minds of young and impressionable students with the idea that Brexit might not all be jam and prosecco (see subtext 167). While we are still waiting for an answer from our own VC as to what exactly he told Heaton-Harris, the New European reports that Worcester VC David Green was more or less vindicated in his decision to tell Heaton-Harris where to go. A ruling by the information commissioner on a different Freedom of Information request which sought to see all his emails containing the word ‘Brexit’ was firmly in favour of the University’s right to keep its correspondence private in this case.

This may lead to some mixed feelings among advocates of transparency who are also worried about Brexit alongside the UK Government’s increasing surveillance of and interference in university activities (for instance, the draconian new monitoring rules for PhD students on Tier 4 visas). Knowledge wants to be free… but also free from too much interference by governments!

subtext 178 – ‘the future ain’t what it used to be’

Fortnightly during term time.

Letters, contributions, & comments: subtext-editors@lancaster.ac.uk

Back issues & subscription details: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/about/

In this issue: editorial, hostile environment (x4), sticky wiki, Gary on teacher (x4), flounders, surveying the surveyors (x2), democracy, LUSU (x3), crazy paving, gradballs (x2), lost & found, mostly men o’ wisdom, wet and forget, spine, buses, UCU (x2), letter.

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EDITORIAL

Today, one of the most highly skilled professions in Britain, university teaching, is dominated by zero-hours contracts, temp agencies, and other forms of precarious conditions, while many tasks that relate to areas in which we have world-leading expertise are outsourced to morally dubious consultancy firms. A staggering number of early-career academics are affected by precarity, but none more so than international staff, who are not only uncertain about their full time job prospects, but flat out prevented from enjoying basic academic freedoms (from supporting strike action to attending conferences abroad, and participating in long-term fieldwork). No matter how much energy and effort one puts in navigating the byzantine bureaucracy, the product might be a standardized letter from the Home Office:

‘As you appear to have no alternative basis of stay in the United Kingdom you should now make arrangements to leave. If you fail to make a voluntary departure a separate decision may be made later to enforce your removal.’

We continue to champion our ‘global outreach and commitment to global research’, yet fail to provide even basic assistance for international staff. Our HR processes and visa teams seem increasingly forced to focus on compliance first (and sometimes compliance only), rather than on providing support to staff and students. The glossy ‘welcome package’ sent out to those who survive the immigration process contains little more than empty slogans and a list of overpriced and opportunistic relocation services. Rather than selling narratives of the ‘Global University’ (at open days and to our colleagues abroad with whom we are asked to network), let’s try addressing the realities of people leaving the UK over Brexit, and the increasingly hostile environment for international staff.

 

THE THIRD RED SCARE

Regular readers of one of subtext’s minor competitors, The Guardian, may have come across an article early on Tuesday morning about a letter sent by Tory whip Chris Heaton-Harris to University Vice-Chancellors demanding to know who was teaching students about Brexit, and what the content of their courses was as well as links to online lectures (http://tinyurl.com/yd7e5xqe). It is true that subtext’s coverage of VCs does not always consist of glowing praise, given pay differentials, inaction on pension theft, vanity building projects, and a litany of other charges. But it seems that at least one VC, Worcester top dog David Green, comes off as something of a hero in this tale, by more or less intimating that he intended to tell the MP to chuff off. Whether our VC had a similar response in mind has yet to be established – D floor has not yet responded to subtext’s request for a comment – though according to the Guardian (the local paper, that is, not the national one – keep up!) it was being treated under the University’s Freedom of Information procedures. This, of course, could amount to the same thing.

Meanwhile, back to Heaton-Harris’s shenanigans, around Tuesday lunchtime, by a report that Downing Street had issued a statement saying Heaton-Harris had been acting not as a Government whip, but in a personal capacity as an MP (http://tinyurl.com/ycdgf4vk). That man must have some interesting conversations with himself. In future, he might take the time to have a good chat with himself about who actually teaches at university, as his letter asked for details of ‘professors’ teaching in the area – presumably unaware of the fact that in the UK, professors mostly do what they can to avoid teaching, which is largely carried out by more junior staff. Or perhaps he thinks anyone who is not a professor can’t be taken seriously? Given the leave campaigners’ attitudes towards ‘experts’, we rather doubt the latter could be the case. Heaton-Harris has been the recipient of failed Tory leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom’s full support, so it can only be a matter of time before he is sacked.

A number of other newspapers have jumped on Heaton-Harris-bashing bandwagon since Tuesday, while some of their… less salubrious fellow publications have jumped to his defence, with hand-wringing articles mentioning ‘remainer universities’ and ‘fears students are being brainwashed by remain-supporting lecturers’. You’d almost think universities had some vested interest in EU membership, such as depending on millions pounds of EU project funding, partnerships with other European universities for inbound and outgoing exchange programmes, and being able to recruit thousands of highly qualified staff from other EU countries.

SHART ATTACK

FROM: Chris Heaton Harris, MP for Daventry.
TO: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U)

Dear Professor Shart,

I was wondering if you would be so kind as to supply me with the names of professors at your establishment who are involved in the teaching of European affairs, with particular reference to Brexit.

Furthermore, if I could be provided with a copy of the syllabus and links to the online lectures which relate to this area I would be much obliged.

I sincerely hope you are able to provide me with such and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,
Chris Heaton-Harris MP

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FROM: Mike M. Shart, VC, Lune Valley Enterprise University (LuVE-U)
TO: Chris Heaton Harris, MP for Daventry
CC: Hewlett Venkkline, Executive Controller: Populace Perception Precision

Dear Chris,

Many thanks for your interest in Lune Valley Enterprise University. I must confess to being a little unaware of individuals within the Government, but I am informed by our Executive Controller of Public Misperception Interception, Hewlett Venkklinne, that you have recently attained some prominence within the media, with ‘Lord Patten’ and the Chief Exec of UUK both having commented on your recent campaigning activity.

I feel that you are an ideal candidate for an Honorary Fellowship of LuVE-U – Hewlett tells me that the nature of your work would make you particularly useful in our ambitions to form partnerships with institutions in mainland China.

I have to say that I am a robust defender of academic freedom, and at Lune Valley our professors are free to think what they want, so long as they do it in their own time and not when they are being paid by the University. Therefore, I will of course furnish you with the details of our many, many professors and their views on Brexit. In the meantime, Hewlett has asked me to stress to you that he definitely voted ‘Leave.’

Best,
Mike.