Scottish Tories not in favour of Reclaim Your Voice campaign

It emerged last week that the Scottish Conservative party will not be supporting NUS Scotland’s Reclaim Your Voice campaign. This means the Conservatives will not be following in the footsteps of their fellow rivals Labour, Scottish National Party and Scottish Greens who signed up earlier last month.

The NUS campaign is calling on politicians to continue to fight the implementation of tuition fees, improve support for students and protect graduation numbers and college places.

Showing his support for the campaign, Scottish Labour Leader Iain Gray said: "I was the first person in my family to go to university and I refuse to impose additional barriers on Scotland’s next generation. Education is the single most important lever in transforming people’s lives.”

Similarly, the Scottish Green party candidate Alison Johnstone stated: “Not only will Greens oppose a return to tuition fees in Scotland, we’ll oppose a graduate tax too. There already is one, and it’s called income tax.”

At the Edinburgh Central election hustings, held last week at Edinburgh University, SNP candidate Marco Biago agreed with Ms Johnstone, saying that the income tax is already enough of a graduate contribution.

Last month, on the day of the dissolution of parliament, students, teachers and trade unionists were among the protesters who marched to Holyrood and rallied outside the Scottish Parliament building for support from the parties.

University of Edinburgh student Samantha Le Summer was among the protestors, and said: “I believe that education should be based on intelligence and not your parents’ income”. The march continued in Stirling this week, where students and staff turned out to support the campaign.

President of NUS Liam Burns described the overall response to the campaign so far as “amazing”. However, he believes that what politicians say now is only the beginning. What is more important, Mr Burns says, “is ensuring that they do the right thing after the election”.