Sean Wallis – for UCU Vice President
For a stronger and more democratic UCU led by ordinary members
Introduction The supposedly 'irresistible' rise of Reform in the face of disappointment with Labour was yesterday (26 February 2026) stopped in Gorton and Denton by a surge to the Green Party. I wrote this opinion piece for the Times Higher Education a week ago in response to the question above, but they declined to publish… Continue reading How can we defend Higher Education in the face of ‘Reform UK’?
Regi Pilling and Sean Wallis We can’t say we’ve not been warned. The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ‘Immigration and Customs Enforcement’ (ICE) agents have shocked people across the world. ICE has terrorised communities from LA to Minneapolis and children as young as 2 have been detained. A wave of anti-ICE protests… Continue reading Stand with Minnesota – Stand Up to Farage
The treatment of the Palestinian people is the defining question of the decade. I wrote this article before the High Court ruled that the ban on Palestine Action was unlawful. Now Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she wants to appeal the judgement. The police are still investigating people for alleged offences. This persecution of… Continue reading Palestine is still the issue
Christina Paine and Sean Wallis in conversation Christina is the branch chair of London Met UCU. She is standing for election in London & the East in the UCU elections. Christina: Sean, what would you say are the priorities for UCU in the fight for secure contracts and decent employment conditions right now? Sean: The… Continue reading How can we take the fight over casualisation forward?
What the USS strike of 2018 tells us about the union today Introduction When Higher Education becomes a market, every Vice Chancellor and Senior Management Team see every other university as their competition. When they invest in campuses speculatively, and risk fortunes won and lost in the Great University Gamble, the sector enters a period… Continue reading USS 2018: ‘The fight of our lives’
In late 2015, following their re-election, the Conservative Government decided it was time to introduce laws to regulate the Higher Education £9K tuition fee market they had imposed in England in 2010 in coalition with the Lib Dems. They drafted a 'White Paper' (a precursor to a Bill). The Bill, when eventually published, had four… Continue reading Organising against the HE Bill 2016
Introduction Higher Education in the UK is in the throes of a three-fold existential crisis. The first faultline concerns the much-discussed chronic crisis of university profitability under the government-backed funding system. In 2011, a home undergraduate student fee of £9,000 obtained a surplus of around £2,000 per student against the average cost of tuition. When… Continue reading The Triple Threat to UK Higher Education: Market, Trump and ‘AI’