It is now June. In 20-odd days we may be out of Europe. The new HE white paper clearly places Higher Education in the market, and as a servant of the market, although no-one inside has been naive enough to think it anywhere else for some time.

Of course, there is resistance inside institutions, and there are great academics and departments. The subjects themselves are still structured according to the old world in most places.

However, UK universities have taken up the Consumer Rights Act, reframing staff as providers and students as consumers. This will change the very fabric of the institutions and it will irrevocably warp the structures of knowledge they care for.

If we are in or out on the 23rd, the political chaos will run and run. HE will not be miraculously liberated from neoconservative policy in the near future. It is time to create new values outside: a more flattened hierarchy, all…