At the beginning of our 7th day of occupation in the Fine Arts building at Newcastle University, a small delegation was sent to hold talks with the Vice Chancellor, Chris Brink, in his office in the Kings Gate building. This delegation was sent with a mandate to discuss the possibility of the Vice Chancellor coming to our space to begin negotiations on our demands.

Unfortunately we must report that he dismissed the possibility of this entirely on the grounds that the students in occupation do not represent the wider student community at Newcastle.

This is despite the occupation having the support of the democratically elected representatives of Newcastle University Students Union, NUS, UCU, Unite and Unison, along with many lecturers and students.

Moreover, this occupations and the recent wave of student protests in general are an attempt to make up for a huge democratic deficit left following the general election, when so many students voted for a party – the Liberal Democrats – who had pledged to do the opposite of what they are carrying out in government.

Finally, we are simply a group of concerned students. Is it so naïve to suppose that our Vice Chancellor, who gets paid rather a lot of money to be chief executive of the university, might grant us an audience?

The Vice Chancellor’s attitude demonstrates just how out of touch the management of our University is with the views and opinions of the student body.

Throughout the meeting the delegates were spoken to in a dismissive manner and it was made clear that the university management had not considered consulting students on the threats we face from the current government. Indeed the Vice Chancellor admitted that it was the continued presence of the occupying students that had led him to the decision that a consultation of students should take place. However, it was made clear to us that any discussion on these issues would occur only on the terms of management.

In response to this inflexibility by management a group a students from the occupation this afternoon staged a peaceful protest in the newly built Kings Gate building. They lied down with their mouths symbolically gagged to demonstrate the undemocratic nature of the decision making process in the university.

They left before disciplinary actions were taken, but their point had been well made, with a huge amount of social media attention generated from the action.

Pictures from the action can be seen here:

 http://ncluniocc.blogspot.com/2010/12/we-have-no-voice.htmlhttp://ncluniocc.blogspot.com/2010/12/we-have-no-voice.html

and here:

 http://ncluniocc.blogspot.com/2010/12/protest-in-kings-gate-finance-building.html