A few thoughts on the Jeremy Corbyn/Labour Party Tuition Fee Debt “Promise” Row

Toby Brampton
Jul 26, 2017 · 6 min read

I originally intended this to be a few tweets but, as with many things, I went too far and almost didn’t do anything, this is why I don’t tweet much. As it ended up a little long for Twitter I’ve quickly retyped, and so, a few thoughts on the tuition fee promise row of the last few days.

Firstly, Jeremy Corbyn/Labour did not promise to pay off all tuition fee debt, we did clearly promise & cost scrapping them however — that was in the manifesto.

This whole issue of paying off the debt came up in an NME interview & I think it’s clear from the full text that he just said he would look at what could be done, especially for those who paid £9,000 per year. The full text:

The following article from the Mirror sums up the issue http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/no-jeremy-corbyn-didnt-mislead-10830250

This is pretty clearly not a party manifesto promise, but yes, a personal promise that he would look to deal with the issue of recent students having so much more debt than those before. The characterisation of the Conservatives/critics is way off, in the first paragraph he doesn’t even talk about paying off fully but just trying to reduce the burden, so the way the £100bn figure of all student debt has been thrown around is completely off. I also assume the Government may one day have to pay off part of that £100bn anyway, but I could be wrong.

In a way though with politics in general & especially at present I’m sadly not sure the truth necessarily matters as much as I’d like — so really we need to look at the effect of the Conservative campaign highlighting these comments & the comments themselves.

The Conservatives, one assumes, think this will damage Corbyn/Labour with younger voters. The Conservatives clearly have an issue with attracting young voters and in this election especially so, clearly, they’re thinking hard about why and tuition fees seems to be one of the key issues they’ve settled on. I’m not really so sure this campaign will have the effect they want and I’m not really sure tuition fees is the key issue.

This attack could also be to damage Corbyn’s image, as the honest/truthful politician, more broadly but again, I’m not sure for people who like him it would make much difference and for those that don’t I doubt tuition fee policies were really their biggest issue with Labour or key focus in an election. As well as that I think a quick read for a lot of people will show this whole thing up for what it is.

Again as before I think that’s where the Conservatives are going very wrong, to assume the only reason younger voters go for Labour is due to one issue, tuition fees, or in fact for one whole age range of voters for any one issue — It’s much wider and around the image of both parties & leaders. I really can’t see this false attack making much difference to that for younger, or in fact any voters. Clearly many people do base their votes on specific issues that they’ve thoroughly researched but I think most do just base their vote on a variety of factors in the months/years before the vote. If the Conservatives want to win younger voters I think Theresa May had part of the answer back in 2002, to shift their image away from being the nasty party — as many times, I think her analysis is very good, however she clearly didn’t manage to deliver on it during the election campaign.

One thing that’s always fascinated me, but especially as a candidate in this recent election is the reasons people vote the way they do. I could talk much more about that, it is really quite an interesting topic, but really it’s probably quite a technical topic requiring research and as with most things in life I talk on a lightly fact based opinion. Looking at the facts though, according to YouGov the tuition fee pledge/education policy in general was only the main reason 4% of people voted Labour:

YouGov polling showing only 4% of Labour voters main reason was Education or tuition fees https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener/

On top of that form a YouGov poll recently has shown only 17% of young voters saw the comments by Corbyn in NME (after reading the statement, which they may not have read before the election) as meaning debt would be fully written off.

Image taken from: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/poll-reveals-17-think-jeremy-10870821

Personally I didn’t go to university and it wasn’t a key campaign policy for me, I feel maintenance grants/support was the more important part of the policy than the fees and I felt at times the overall policy distracted from our range of policies on education, we had a lot more to offer to a broad range of people who didn’t/don’t want to go to university.

I would have been perfectly happy with just cutting fees and either spending elsewhere, taxing less or cutting the deficit quicker. Finally on tuition fees, I accept the tuition fee issue is complex and I’d almost rather we took politics out of it and had a thorough cross party review. As Corbyn said, I think even just tweaking the terms of existing/new debts could make the system a lot fairer.

Ultimately, I believe this whole row has come about because of the very reason many like Corbyn, he speaks his mind/says what he believes rather than just repeating the same phrases over and over again — it’s both a weakness & strength but has got him where he is. While the policy of the UK government and all major political parties on this issue should be the key thing, this specific debate is all really just politics and an attack that I imagine won’t succeed, but we’ll see.

One final thing, I think this issue around misinterpreting young voters and voters in general works with Brexit too, the whole “wait till young (/Labour) voters realise they’ve been conned by anti-EU Corbyn/Labour” thing doesn’t really work. I don’t think young voters were pro remain because of some love for the Single Market/Customs Union & I doubt a high percentage of all voters know what those things are. It was again a broader image of the EU/the choice at the referendum. I also think many people just see those as the EU and accept we’re leaving due to the referendum. I do personally back the UK retaining full membership SM/CM union though and in time, yes, maybe people will regret leaving them and Labour’s current stance, I doubt by that time it would be Corbyn’s problem or in any way blamed on him anyway (ultimately it should be the Conservatives/current Government) and I do understand why we took the stance we did in the election. There is again a difference between the economically right choice & the politically right choice, although many would argue good economics is good politics.

In both cases (fees/Brexit issues) I do think this is about misunderstanding why people vote the way they do and politics as opposed to policy, and this specific attack campaign regarding the NME interview is a weak & shaky political attack that won’t go far. On both fronts of politics and policy I’m no expert, on voting at least I think I’ll leave it to YouGov.

SOURCES ETC.:

“Labour will reintroduce maintenance grants for university students, and we will abolish university tuition fees.” Key line of Labour Party 2017 General Election Manifesto on tuition fees

http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017/towards-a-national-education-service

“Removing university tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants - £11.2bn” part of “Funding Britain’s Future” — funding document accompanying the Labour Party 2017 General Election Manifesto

http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/Images/manifesto-2017/FUNDING-BRITAINS-FUTURE.PDF

Full tuition fee debt/Gov bill: “Last month, the Student Loan Company said that outstanding debt on student loans had increased by 16.6% to £100.5bn at the end of March.

Only about a third of the students who have taken out £9,000-a-year loans are expected to pay them back fully, meaning the government will have to pick up part of the bill.”

BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40547740

NME interview: http://www.nme.com/news/jeremy-corbyn-will-deal-already-burdened-student-debt-2082478

Theresa May 2002 Conference Speech on Nasty Party: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/08/uk.conservatives2002

Toby Brampton

Written by

Bloke trying to remember what to do with his spare time. Reigate @UKLabour - 2017 PPC

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