Like many LibDems, I was unhappy when Nick Clegg acquiecsed in the Tory policy of raising tuition fees. As the smaller party in the first peacetime coalition government, it was clear that we would not be able to enact all of our own policies and compromises had to be made. Nevertheless, in my view it was a mistake which cost us dear in 2015. Other parties, who have made many mistakes, keep reminding the electorate of this and the party has few friends amongst the press.
However we should listen to people like Rahul Mansigani who, as President of Cambridge University students union in 2010 led huge protest demonstrations against the increase in tuition fees, writes-
"I would never have thought that I would ever encourage people to vote Liberal Democrat again. But in 2017, I am a fully paid-up member of the Lib Dems, and proud of it. Last year’s Brexit referendum result was a catastrophe for Britain’s young people, with almost 75 per cent of us voting to remain. As the initial shock subsided, the Tories clarified their plans to crash us out of the single market, restrict our rights to live, work and study throughout the EU, and leave us isolated on the world stage at a time when, in Theresa May’s own words, the world needs the “liberal, democratic values of Europe”.
By September, as Eurosceptic Corbyn obstinately stayed put while his MPs deserted him, and as Theresa May declared that “if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere” and the Conservatives demanded that companies publish the numbers of “foreigners” they employed, I saw that the only party that would fight for our values and battle against a hard Brexit was the Liberal Democrats. Like thousands of others, I signed up.
Brexit is the defining issue of this election and of our political generation. The way it is conducted will go to the heart of all the issues we protested about in 2010. Back then, the broadest aim of our protests was to give our young people the best chance of success in an open, prosperous, tolerant Britain. We must now support the Liberal Democrats to continue that wider campaign; a Tory Brexit undermines the existence of the Britain we believe in, not to mention the very existence of the UK.
The Lib Dems are and have always been proudly European, and (unlike the policy issue of tuition fees) this is fundamental to the party. Labour, despite its sudden clarity on scrapping tuition fees, remains hopelessly divided on its own vision of Brexit. The Liberal Democrats are the only party left to stand up for the 48 per cent, for the millions of voters, particularly the young, who voted to remain part of Europe, to be free to study in Paris or Berlin, to marry in Rome or Amsterdam and to work in Stockholm or Sofia."
www.independent.co.uk/voices/lib-dems-labour-tuition-fees-jeremy-corbyn-tim-farron-brexit-general-election-never-again-a7728616.html#commentsDiv
