A leftwing organisation that led demonstrations against student fees and Conservative higher education reforms has set itself at odds with Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit by pledging to increase its campaigns to keep the UK in the EU and maintain the free movement of workers.
The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) said it would join anti-Brexit demonstrations the National Union of Students (NUS) is organising this summer and autumn, and establish a “radical, leftwing, pro-migrant bloc”. The move is another sign of young people increasingly mobilising against the UK’s scheduled departure from the EU in March next year.
The NCAFC coordinated action and street protests by thousands of students against university fees in 2010 and 2011, and later actions during the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition government against its wider higher education policies.
Christie Neary, a member of the NCAFC national committee, said it was time Corbyn joined the battle to stop Brexit.
“The only Brexit is a Tory Brexit – a racist attack on migrants and workers’ rights. Jeremy Corbyn knows that bankrupt hospitals, low pay and failing schools are the fault of bosses and relentless austerity, not migrants. Labour can’t afford to give any more ground to the right. It’s time Corbyn committed to the defence of free movement and workers, and that means leading the campaign to stop Brexit altogether,” Neary said.
As the party stages its “Jezfest” music festival in north London on Saturday, pressure from pro-EU Labour supporters for the party to take a clearer anti-Brexit line is growing.
MPs and remain activists want the party to abandon its policy of “constructive ambiguity” after Corbyn faced his biggest Commons rebellion by backbenchers last week on a motion about staying in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Student organisations representing almost a million young people studying at UK universities and colleges joined forces last month to demand a “people’s vote” on any final Brexit deal as fears grow that leaving the EU will have a disastrous effect on their future prospects.
The NCAFC is not formally linked to Labour, but many of its supporters are Corbyn supporters.
The rebellion by Labour MPs happened after party whips ordered them to abstain over a motion that backed staying in the EEA. The Labour leadership objected partly because of concerns that membership would mean obeying free movement rules after Brexit, and also because it might make it difficult for the UK to join a customs union and therefore find a solution to the Northern Ireland border issue.
Concerns that the party’s stance on Brexit is hitting its support grew on Thursday when Labour’s Janet Daby won the the Lewisham East by-election but with a severely reduced majority.
The poll saw the biggest swing – 19% – from a Labour opposition to the pro-EU Lib Dems since 1983. It came despite Daby saying she would argue to stay in the single market and the customs union.