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With this emphasis on action in mind, one of the first events of the weekend was a step-by-step training session, given by UCL students who recently won nearly £1 millionmillion in compensation from their university, on exactly how to start a rent strike that will make a difference.The way to win, UCL student Iida Kayhko told the group, is to know your enemy (i.e. the university management), and to go on the offensive. You have the upper hand here: you can easily know what they are going to do – they work slowly and you can predict it – but they don't know what you are going to do because you can act a lot more quickly. Essentially, she said, you've got to take every opportunity to attack the managers and make the university look bad as you can. "One time when we were meeting, a UCL manager slipped up and said something like, 'We don't consider low income students when setting the rent.' We were recording it and sent it to the press and it was published all over the place.""It's time to unleash the power of the student movement on a local and national level." NUS President Malia Bouattia.
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Back in the training session, the group were told to sketch out a battle plan to create chaos for the university, while UCL rent strikers circled the room to offer advice. They discussed various scenarios, such as what would happen if the university threatens to expel students who aren't paying their rent. The answer, according to Iida: "You call a massive national demo and get coach-loads of students from other unis in for a really aggressive protest… and you do it quickly.""If management threaten to expel people, go to their offices with drums; if they threaten to bring in bailiffs, burn effigies of them." UCL student Ben Beach.
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