This is one that we have already played - and lost. When tuition fees legistlation was implemented in time for the 1998/99 academic year (a very short time from being announced, to passing, to reality) the NUS first organised several regional demonstrations and a national one-day shut-down. Support of activist groups was practically non-existant, local campaigning provisions for unions were sketchy, little sign of a properly co-ordinated significant national campaign. When students took additional action themselves they were often condemned by NUS executive members. Today after much work the NUS holds national demonstrations too, but the original three national demos in 97-98 had to be organised by the Campaign for Free Education.

Student Unions such as Oxford University Students' Union who supported students who refused to pay their fees and assisted in their campaign, often generating far more press coverage and getting more leverage than NUS were, were shunned completely by 'on-message' NUS. The result was a campaign solely centred around individual universities that was crippled because of lack of support from the national body and other unions. Where students were removed from courses because they couldn't afford to pay fees, not even a whimper could be heard from NUS. Unions that adopted policies to protect those who couldn't pay with organised action were hassled by NUS and presented with the most spurious interpretation of Ultra Vires to stop all support, instead of using their legal expertise to work within and around the various laws safely.

Now we are faced with a feeling of deja-vu. 1997 is back again. This time the stakes are higher but the situation is still the same. Shortly before Tony Blair's rise to power the NUS had dropped support for grants. After fees were passed the then National Secretary of NUS, Simon Webber, wrote about students who still supported that there should be a livable grant instead of being laden with 10,000 pounds of debt as an "outdated and extremist position...that a mass further and higher education system can still be funded by the state" (letter to Surrey University Union publication). Today, there are "members" of Webber's "Organised Independents" faction filling National Secretary, VP Welfare and VP Education, as well as part time positions. The Funding the Future document now states with regards to tuition fees "NUS agrees with the government that those who benefit from HE should contribute towards the cost" and we have National President held by the candidate of the Labour Party's student organisation, who would like a graduate tax. Standard fees are becoming what grants were then, top-up fees now what standard fees were then.

What is at stake however ensures this is no game. Tuition fees and the insufficient loan system placed significant financial strains on students, causing many to drop out and many more just to not bother applying. However, students in most cases could afford to study if they were lucky enough to have parents who could pay, who managed to fall underneath the tight means-testing limits that 66% (now improved to 50%) didn't, or were willing to jeopordise their studies by taking work at over twenty-hours a week. When, and I'm going out on a limb as I believe the 'if' has almost completely faded, universities attempt to implement top-up fees this will lead to the elimination of access to top universities for hundreds of thousands of potential students, or for those who choose to go, level them with so many tens of thousands of debt (and probably at commercial rate) that they may never recover. Bankruptcy will probably be the preferable option for many students who can not cope with their debts. It will polarise the Russell Group universities from the rest in such a way to throw the country back to the dark ages in which there is very little social mobility with regards to education and money is the only way to get a place in Imperial College London or Oxford. In addition it will open the free market into course provision - courses that do not attract significant numbers of students no matter how much their personal value face closure. Expensive engineering and lab based courses will either have their fees rise significantly above non-lab courses or (as Sykes' proposals - that there is one fee per university, irrelevant of the courses) will be shedded to keep university costs low.

Neither is it a horror story. This is the reality in the United States, and is becoming more and more so in Canada, Australia and all over the world. In Australia, prices are now much higher and linked to course value. "Tuition deregulation" in Canada causes many courses to rise at 10%-20% a year or more. In the US Ivy League fees rise to $135,000 for a degree, and many state universities are having their government funding slashed and so their fees increasing. Nationally US four-year public university fees had risen by 9.6% last year. In Britain universities do not have endowment funds in the same fashion, and so there would be even less potential for access from the less wealthy.

So this time we must change the strategy. If NUS takes the same action as it did in 1997 and the years after we will get the same result. History will repeat itself, the outcome is already known, and it will have failed every one of its members, to the point where surely the organisation's existance and purpose must be brought into question. Many unions looking at disaffiliation are already asking. It need not happen here though. In Germany and Spain, where unions and students have been far more active, significant progress has been made.

We must begin re-writing by throwing out the guiding force in NUS campaigning over the past fifteen to twenty years - that if NUS tries it's best to be respectable and negotiate in a "mature" manner the government will see it is in the wrong, accept that NUS has "won the debate" and for some reason proceed to grant students concessions. Over those past two decades the abolition of universal grants, the slashing of mandatory grants, the end of housing and unemployment benefits, the introduction of loans, tuition fees, and now top-up fees has shown this to not only be wrong but disasterously so. No other sector of the organised population have seen such significant cuts over such a short period of time with so little being done about it. Recently, the Fire Brigades Union are threatening strike action over a rise in pay, and the lack of specialised fire support that only this group of skilled individuals can provide may put lives at risk. When the vast majority of our members were put in around 10,000 pounds of debt which could last for most of their lives - a much greater event in significance than a pay raise from median earnings - it wasn't even rejected by our union, never mind any action taken. When public service personell took the initiative over low pay they brought services grinding to a halt and greatly improved their bargaining conditions. The amount of action taken by NUS over tuition fees, a comparable if not greater danger to our members, was absolutely nominal.

A lobby's power is in its ability to affect governments and pressure them to its wishes. Different lobbies do this in different ways. International business lobbies do this by threatening to move their organisation to different nations, costing jobs and tax income, if a government does not modify or re-write its tax policy to suit. In the United States and less so here, many lobbies have influence by donating to political parties' funds - without the donations they couldn't buy airtime and would lose elections. More to the point, unions have the ability to disrupt operations, run campaigns, to affect the voter bases, voting habits of members, and operations of the institutions they are a part of. Making a headache for the government. The larger a problem is to a government, whether it affects their voter base, party finance, or finance or operation of the institutions it runs, the higher up on its list of priorities to fix. Just being respectable, while perhaps in PR terms a benefit, is also an invite for the government to completely ignore you. If they have the CBI wanting a tax cut on a section of trading who can disrupt government policy if it does not comply - which has to come from somewhere, and a students' union who will just create the odd demonstration with a see-today gone-tomorrow article in a few of the press, then we know what it will do. "Mature" negotiations just result in students being an easy target. Being a problem results in them looking elsewhere. We need more than that.

The government pledged in their election manifesto that they "would not introduce 'top-up' fees". This booklet is most certainly valid for the lifetime of the parliament. Although there is nothing to guarentee this, at this point the government is still expected to wait out the term in parliament before top-up fees are actually started. To pass legistlation beforehand however would still make this document a lie and the government a liar, but then that would be another case of deja-vu as at the election previous the government stated that it had no intention to introduce tuition fees. History repeating again. So, it may well be three years before top-up fees are actually started. The time to start however, is now.

Students at Imperial College, who are typically non-political and whose union isn't even affiliated to the NUS have witnessed an incredible surge in activity. Following their Union Council meeting attendance shooting up by several hundred students, it was motioned into an Emergency General Meeting. This meeting then threw out a rather vague motion on the top-up proposals authored by the union's President Sen Ganesh that didn't even oppose the new fees and passed another "unequivically reject[ing] the Rector's proposal on 'top-up fees'" - ensuring the union's opposition at the following meeting which passed Sykes' proposals. Several days after this significant increase in the democratic participation of union members, there was a significantly increased silent protest held with hundreds of students attending. This excellent start, occuring almost overnight, will hopefully grow into an effective campaign as the top-up fees legistlation begins to solidify.

However, As indicated earilier in the article, greater effectiveness is gained by items that have a direct influence over the operations of the institutions, so-called "direct action". Age-ing examples included the concessions gained by Oxford students from their sit-ins and Durham students from their rent strikes - where students collectively hold back on rents in order to create a much more beneficial bargaining situation. Years ago NUS had documents assisting student unions in how to organise rent strikes properly, now their documents just do their best to convince student unions not to hold one. More relevantly and recently are Cambridge University Students' Union writing to alumni (former students) to request that they hold off making any donations to the university until the university comes out against top-up fees. This action will make a real difference - right now financies at all higher education institutions are squeezed to the limits and the potential to lose significant amounts of contributions from graduates will weigh heavily. If we are to have a good chance at preventing top-up fees we will need to use all of our tools in our toolbox as appropriate, including a properly organised collective fee boycott. If we continue to make token gentures we can only be returned with token promises.

It will take time to change our unions and our national union into those in which activism flourishes and is well resourced. It will be today's freshers who will be the union sabbaticals that will be fighting this, tomorrows fresher's who will be the students fighting this and also who will suffer from it, and today's students and graduates who must begin the process of building the initial stages of the campaign. Unfortunately, however much I would like the structures and current standing of our student unions to be secondary to the actual members and grassroots pressures themselves, the current structures have been used through communication (or more, lack of) to stifle and work against effective protest, as listed earlier. This is where we must begin. If we are to see an effective stategic campaign (instead of just a few random demos) against the new threats then we must begin with our unions, and more importantly, our national union and official political arm of the student movement.

To do this we need student activists like you to work for change and stand for positions. The fact that you're now taking an interest and reading this may very well make you more qualified to hold a local union position than most of your fellow local candidates. Just as importantly however, we need you to consider standing for NUS positions and being elected for your union's NUS Conference delegation in order to make change at a national level - and if not then find candidates who also want to make a real change (and be careful - everyone says they do so do your research properly) and actively support them. There has been painfully few excellent candidates in the last few years when compared to those who I've met on the ground who could stand but for whatever reasons don't, even from the official left slate or left and "genuine" independents who actually recognise the need for a fighting NUS to defend students' interests. We desperately need winners, but even if you don't, at least you've given your views a platform to affect others - this worked incredibly well with VP FEUD elections this year, where the truth became clear just because of the number of candidates with different political arguments who stood pushing for FE's much needed self-determination. The NUS runs on an Alternate Vote electoral system, you cannot split the vote from any other candidates - so work both within and outside the organised left. Groups like the Campaign for Free Education have done a lot of good work, but don't be restrained by groups either. This very site, educationet, for example was created by just one individual one day trying to inform and make a difference and it is now the number one site in the country with regards to covered news and events in student politics.

Most importantly though, be involved in making the grassroots campaigns happen - no matter how much or little you can dedicate, no matter how much experience you do or do not have. You don't need to be "political" either by making a political gesture. To be a success depends more on lots of people doing a little than the few people doing a lot.

We owe it to our members, ourselves and every future student. Start now.