On Saturday 20th June, over 250 people from Atherton and the surrounding area took part in the first protest march in the town for more than 15 years. (Atherton is located in the eastern part of the Wigan Metropolitan Borough of Greater Manchester, and up until the next General Election forms part of the Leigh Parliamentary constituency, the MP for which is currently the new Health Secretary, Andy 'IKEA Bathrobe' Burnham)
Making up the ranks of the highly vocal demonstration were pupils, ex-pupils, parents, teachers, local residents and Governors of the town's Hesketh Fletcher CE High School, which is earmarked for closure by the local Labour controlled Borough Council in 2012 under its "Brighter Schools for the Future" programme.
The Protest march which also included protestors from the similarly closure threatened Gilded Hollins Primary School in Leigh, aptly commenced and concluded with a rally almost immediately opposite the Locksmith's Shop owned by Wigan's new Labour Mayor and local Labour Councillor Mark Alldred, who's inauguration service as Mayor at the local Parish Church, and parade through the town also fell foul of angry anti-school closure protestors chanting "Save our School" less than a month ago. (see: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1786631&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=53007576577&aid=-1&oid=53007576577&id=774651505).
Alas, to the jeers of those assembled, the Mayor declined the offer to take part in our protest and to say a few words to us, and instead quickly lowered the shop's security shutters and scarpered out of the backdoor of his premises.
With the chants "We're at Ecky and we're bright, we will stop you, we will fight still" and "Save Our School" still ringing in our ears, speaker after speaker at the Rally, including more than half a dozen pupils at the school, condemned the proposed closure - the general consensus of what was said being that the Council should be working on improving the school rather than shutting it, and that those that were present are determined to fight the Council every inch of the way.
Speaking at the Rally myself I said that the closure plan really had nothing to do with improving our kids education "The Government and the Council might want to try and tell us that its about that, but in reality this is a deception and a cover for little other than the systematic 'rationalising' and privatising of our education system locally and nationally regardless of what our views might be about that.
"It's about selling off public land to help finance short-term local and national government spending, and about making us ordinary folk pay more than we already do, in the longer term for our kids education, via increases in council tax and/or other taxes in the future a result of the Council having to take out and service massive loans to build all the proposed new schools, and/or to lease them from private contractors over a period of 25 to 30 years or more."
The Protest Rally which its organisers regard as merely an early salvo of the campaign, concluded with a huge cheer by all, indicative of the determination of those present to fight the Council's proposals in the months ahead.
WHAT NEXT?
The sham consultation process organised by the Council concludes on the 26th June, and local residents and not just parents of school age kids, are still being encouraged to submit their opinions, and objections to the Council before the deadline. However for most of us the Council's decision would appear to be a foregone conclusion. So were do we go from here?
Certainly whatever we do needs to be primarily focused on the immediate practical issue of building up grassroots support for our campaign, putting together all our collective talents to help disseminate our various arguments against the closure of our school as best we can in our community, getting people to support our petition, and our local activities, etc, - on what you could call the basic 'winning of hearts and minds' - the aim of which ideally should be to get a majority of the population to support what we are fighting for in the Atherton area.
However, since our adversary is the Borough Council, it would also seem common sense to me that we should link up with other campaigns such as the one to Save Guilded Hollins School in Leigh, and any others that might emerge in the borough on the issue, into a borough-wide united front against the Council's BSF programme if what we're all fighting for is to have the best chance of succeeding. After all even if everyone in Atherton, Lowton, Golborne & Pennington supported us, that still wouldn't provide us with sufficient popular support across the borough as a whole to stop the proposed school closures.
We're also part of a much bigger fight than that too, whether we're conscious of it, or like it or not either, in that both of our and the Gilded Hollins campaign are but two of many fronts that are opening up in an unfolding battle against the BSF programme/Labour's education policies all over the country. There are already big campaigns in places like Barrow, Salford, Lewisham (and that's just three I know of) and I think we should link up with all those campaigns on a national level on the simple principle of 'unity is strength' too!
After all, if there were enough of us working together nationally we might even have the basis for a mass national lobby of Parliament and a national demonstration on 10 Downing Street to demand that the BSF programme be scrapped as Government policy.
Such a linking up with others strategy can only help our fight locally as far as I can see! Plus the alternative would be to do nothing at all on this score, but I can't see the benefit of that.
Of course any and all work directed at forging and building such links with others across the borough or nationally is not something everyone needs to be directly involved with, but with a proper division of Labour we can and should pursue such in my opinion for the reasons given.
We also need to do lots and lots of things to keep the momentum of our campaign going. Things like the suggested drive to school protest/road traffic impact assessment idea by a member of the Gilded Hollins School campaign, maybe a couple of big outdoor social events over the summer such as a fundraising BBQ and/or a Live Music concert (how about a Love Music Hate School Closures event?), plus various high-profile publicity stunts and so on, as our eventual waning through lack of progress into a small bands of activists is what our opponents will likely be relying on, in what they will have already planned for, might likely amount to a twelve month or more war of attrition with us.
As a consequence we really will need to keep our public profile and activity up for potentially quite a long period if we're going to win, which is always a hard task. However, if people recognise this early on and accept that its going to be a long fight then I think this will better help maintain our overall morale and fighting spirit through the duration of our fight.
Being more thoughtful and creative about what we do in terms of activity will also help maintain morale.
In addition to this I think we need to put Andy Burnham under intense pressure over the issue immediately. We need to demand an unequivocal commitment from him to oppose the plans to close both our schools and for him to fight for a change in Labour party policy nationally and locally on the issue. If he isn't prepared to give such a commitment then I think we should tell him no uncertain terms that we will mount a united campaign with the Gilded Hollins campaigners to oust him as MP, in addition to mounting another one to boot out those of his Labour colleagues who up for re-election at the 2010 local elections.
Leigh might have been a pretty safe Labour seat previously, but the Labour vote has collapsed by 42% in numerical terms since 2006 so Andy Burnham isn't totally invulnerable to a strong 'People's' candidate opposed to the school closure programme and supported by our & the Gilded Hollins campaigns at the next General Election. Even if we didn't beat him he'd likely prefer to do without being harried by us in this way, but therein lies the reason for us doing it. In fact who knows whether or not, under enough pressure from us, we might even get him and the Government to abandon BSF not only in Wigan but everywhere else too?
Lord Smith the Council leader should also be placed under intense political pressure too.
He is up for re-election in Leigh West ward in 2010 and I'd say highly vulnerable to a well organised campaign by us and the Gilded Hollins people on the ground in his council ward to boot him out if he doesn't put a halt to the BSF policy in Wigan. Indeed I reckon we could possibly even negotiate a clear field against him at a push, since his defeat would be universally welcomed by everyone other his Labour colleagues on Wigan Council, likely throughout the entire North West region!
Maybe we should just go after him anyway? - turn the next local election in his ward into a referendum on the school closures issue. Indeed, Westleigh High School which will be greatly affected by the closure for the Hesketh Fletcher School if it goes through, since it would likely be the most popular choice of Atherton parents to send their children to were that to happen, is I believe in the Ward he's a Councillor for.
I bet they haven't done a traffic impact assessment there. I think we should do our own traffic impact assessment by organising our own drive to school protest in Westleigh, possibly even doing it big style the week of the elections. I think this would focus a lot of people's attention on the issue. I think if we went on the knocker in the Ward we could also probably sign up a majority to both our petitions, likely also possibly even get 2000 people to pledge themselves to vote against Lord Smith if he doesn't scrap the plan to close our schools.
It would take a fair effort on our part over many months, but I think putting this kind of pressure on Peter Smith and his Labour colleagues elsewhere in the Borough is likely our best tack for stopping these closures. After all it he and his Labour colleagues who are pushing this policy - if we boot them out of office the policy will get the boot with them. It's not rocket science. Peter Smith would also lose over £50k plus in allowances if he's kicked out - the potential personal loss of which as a result of the pressure put on him by us, might even force him to abandon the BSF policy in Wigan before the local elections.
Yes we need to do all the other things I mentioned earlier too, but this latter tack really is the road to victory as far as I'm concerned.
Save our School Campaigns:
Support the fight to Save Gilded Hollins School: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=87734847529&ref=ts
Barrow Parents Action Group Against Furness Academy: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=114582095782&ref=ts
Hands Off Lewisham Bridge Primary School: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=94554226367&ref=ts