A student protest greeted Minister of State Sam Gyimah when he visited the University of Surrey on Friday (November 23, 2018).

The protest was organised and led by Surrey Labour Students and other student activist groups on campus, including Surrey People & Planet, the Surrey Liberal Society and Surrey, Cut The Rent.

The protesters carried placards and banners with slogans against the marketisation of education and the continuing rise in international student tuition fees.

Students gathering at the start of the protest route.

Mr Gyimah, the Conservative MP for East Surrey and minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, was interviewed by the president of the Student Union, Alex Harden, in front of a student audience.

Outside students chanted: “Education for the masses, not just for the ruling classes!” and “When they say cut back, we say fight back!” Placards read: “Education is a right, not a privilege” and “We are students, not customers”.

Lucy Mason, co-chair of the Surrey Labour Students [not Surrey Liberal Society as originally stated], said: “This Tory government has trebled tuition fees, scrapped maintenance grants and caused a mental health crisis through under-funding. It’s time we take a stand and put forward Labour’s vision for a fully-funded national education service.”

During the interview, some of the group asked Mr Gyimah about overcrowding at universities, the cost of rent in Guildford and his voting record on EU migrant rights after Brexit.

The interview event underway in Hari’s Bar on the University of Surrey campus.

Surrey Labour Students organisers said the students were “protesting against the attacks the Conservative government has done [on] students, staff and the higher education system. We are demanding the abolition of tuition fees for all students, living grants for all, and an end to the marketisation of our higher education system”.

One student, Nick Werren, of Surrey People & Planet, said: “The Conservative Party are doing their best to turn everything into a marketplace.

“If you take the University of Surrey, in recent years some people have said the university has been increasing aggressively. It hasn’t actually been able to fund its own increase, so it needs to get more students in to pay for its expansion and the only place it can get its money now is from international students.

“This means we have a university which is increasingly fragmented and needs more infrastructure but of course they can’t provide that infrastructure because they don’t have the money, so they must keep asking for more students to fund the infrastructure.”