It is very easy for student union leaders to proclaim their intention to defend student militants. The only problem is, that they hardly ever do so. The example of Imperial College and its attempt to expel a leading militant, Piers Corbyn, from the campus shows this. Piers has in fact successfully fought this, and was re-instated by the college last Tuesday. However, he only managed this in isolation with the help of a few militants around him. The leadership of the students union, while giving empty verbal support, in fact scabbed on Piers in every way it could. The Union Council never at any stage of the struggle discussed the question of mobilising the students at Imperial in support of Piers. At the most, a majority of the Council was prepared to ask a Union General Meeting to ask NUS for legal aid for Piers in fighting his expulsion which in the absence of any political support on the campus would just have drawn Piers through a fruitless legal experience and thus have pre-empted any struggle at Imperial.
However, the mistakes of the Union Council in general pale into insignificance beside the behaviour of the Union President, John McCollough = McCullough not only failed to assist Piers in any way, but deliberately attempted to sabotage his defence. At the Union General Meeting at which the case we dacused he attempted to destroy the sodon of support by amending it to prevent the union asking NUS for legal aidalthough NUS had already guaranteed itand by the time this manoeuvre was fought off and his amendment defeated he was able to declare the meeting inquorate. It may not be entirely coincidental that he also recently had a meeting with Mrs. Thatcher. How did Piers manage to stay in Imperial College with a leadership like this? Part of the explanation is that with the support of a very small SocSoc he was able to generate enough discussion on campus through union meetings, leaflets, etc. to frighten the college authorities into believing that the Left might be able to mobilise Imperial students into taking action despite their "leadership'. Also important were the numerous messages of support from student unions and SocSoes following an appeal from the Liaison Committee, which appears to have had a considerable effect on the college's decision. Nor can they have failed to be influenced by the attitude of the local branch of the National Union of Public Employees, which sent a very strong letter to the Rector giving full support to Piers and threatening action in support of any action which the students might take. This was in contrast to the behaviour of the C.P.-led ASTMS branch (of which Piers is a member) whose position throughout the struggle was, to say the least, ambiguous. Certain very important lessons can be learnt from this struggle. If threats of action by a small minority of activists can gain victories in spite of the official leadership, then genuine collective action by the mass of students can do even more. Defeat is not always inevitable. But it can only be avoided if, as in this struggle, it is realised that in many cases union officials are not concerned to defend their members and independent action must be taken; that struggles must not remain isolated but must be generalised to other colleges; and that every effort must be made to obtain support from those workers most closely involved in the day-to-day running of the colleges, such as the NUPE branch at Imperial. LSE Occupy Students at the London School of Economics will be occupying the school on Friday, 21st January, after a complete breakdown in negotiations with the authorities over a new union constitution. The students decided to implement their draft of the new constitution unilaterally at a union meeting on 15th January, and on Monday the School retaliated by freezing the union's funds, which they control. This struggle marks a revival in organised student action at LSE after a gap of three years. After the 'great" year of 1968 the Left was effectively smashed by the authorities, and the strategy and tactics that were evolved at that time were rendered irrelevant in the changed situation where the School recovered its control, conceding virtually nothing to the student body. However in the time that has elapsed the Socialist Society has gradually reorganised itself, developing through small-scale spontaneist actions such as the occupation of Houghton Street to the production of a coherent critique of bourgeois education, and also the removal of secular divisions by a group broadly united by the "May Day Manifesto' on education (available 6р, LSE SocSoc).
The position of the LSE Students Union is a complicated one: the essential point to understand, however, is that the London School of Economics is a Limited Company Its relationship with the ruling class is very clear, providing as is well known many of the ideas used by the capitalist elite for the perpetuation of their system. The position of the Students Union within this framework is much as it would be if the Thatcher proposals were already implemented (no control of the union funds etc.).
To strike against this position a new union constitution, deleting the powers of the Director and the Court of Governors, was drafted and then overwhelmingly carried at a union meeting. This was then followed by the victory of the Socialist Society slate in the Union Council elections, the slate being pledged to the implementation of the new, free constitution. On 16th December the new Union Council took these demands