The end of the National Union of Students? A report on NUS Extraordinary Conference

Posted on November 13, 2008
Filed Under News

By Daniel Randall, University of Sheffield delegate

This is a provisional report; a selection of more comprehensive reports will appear on this site soon.

The NUS leadership and its supporters will undoubtedly crow that their proposed new constitution was passed overwhelmingly (614 to 142) by the 12 November Extraordinary Conference in Wolverhampton. But when one considers both the fact that this was a term-time, weekday conference called without a requirement for cross-campus ballots pick elect delegates; and the amount of financial and human resources they had at their disposal to push their propaganda (including emailing all conference delegate with a pro-constitution rant by National Treasurer Dave Lewis - apparently done “in error”), it is hardly surprising that the activist left wasn’t able to mobilise equivalent numbers.

The arguments on the day were predictable, but no less disappointing for that. Although very little has qualitatively changed since the constitution was defeated at the April 2008 Annual Conference, the new proposals were presented as somehow fresh and innovative. Relatively limited amendments from left-led SUs like Sussex and Bradford (proposing, for example, to scrap the plan to have unelected external trustees from outside the student movement sit on the new “Board”, which will have oversight over “financial and legal administration”) were greeted with derision by the leadership as they postured their way through a conference they had sewn up from the start.

One point worth noting is the fact that, during the last year, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies switched from opposition to to support for the Governance Review. This should be highly embarrassing for those, like the SWP, who have consistently promoted FOSIS as part of the student left. In fact, FOSIS have revealed their true colours clearly: a communalist organisation whose opportunistic alliance with the left was replaced with support for the leadership as soon as they thought they could get more that way.

The extent to which political culture in NUS has degenerated was perhaps best demonstrated in the debates around two particular amendments - one proposing the mandatory gender-balancing of future delegations, and another proposing to scrap NUS’s “no platform” policy. Although there are plenty of socialist critiques of delegation quotas and positive discrimination, the arguments used against them here were much more of the “gender inequality doesn’t really exist, so why do we need this?” variety. In the “no platform” debate, right-wingers displayed the most abject lack of understanding of fascist organisation which, by its nature, represents an immediate declaration of war on the labour movement, ethnic minorities, LGBT people and other oppressed groups. Proposing to deal with the BNP “democratically” through “debate” misses the key point that fascism is not just a particularly nasty form of right-wing politics, but a violent mass movement. In an NUS in which prominent SU officers joke about “bringing back slavery” (see here), these sorts of tragic misunderstandings are hardly surprising. Fortunately, the “no platform” policy was successfully defended.

Left activists in SUs such as Bradford, Salford and Sussex have already said they would find it hard to defend continued affiliated to a post-Governance Review NUS operating under the new constitution. If the constitution is indeed ratified, left-led SUs, radical SU officers, campaigning groups and individual activists must coordinate to ensure that if NUS is to split, we do not simply see the most radical unions disaffiliating one-by-one, but rather a concerted break on the part of several unions and with the explicit aim of refounding a national federation of SUs based on grassroots, activist politics. We need an urgent discussion on these issues.

The lunch-time ENS caucus was attended by 30-40 activists and generated some decent discussion. The post-conference caucus, which saw SWSS members join with ENS and independent left-wingers, saw both myself and leading SWPer Rob Owen stress the importance of the Friday 14 London demo (see here) and the planned national demo in early 2009 (see here). The radical left should not abandon the terrain of the NUS reform debate (the new consitution still needs to be ratified by one more conference - either another Extraordinary or the 2009 Annual Conference; the NEC will manouver to ensure that it is the former); at the same time, another frontline for our politics has to be rebuilding a fighting, activist culture in the student movement that has generated huge movements in France, Greece, Italy and Ireland within the last period.

* Come to the planning meeting for a national demonstration, 1pm, Saturday 15 November, at the London School of Economics (Holborn tube). For more information email skillz_999@hotmail.com