NUS Conference

Happy New Year everyone!

It's a little late to be wishing New Year greetings I know, given that it's very nearly February, but better late than never, right?! So what's my excuse for the seriously delayed reaction, you may be wondering? Well, for those who haven't had the delight of experiencing it first hand, I'll let you in on this well kept secret... Final year's a bitch!!
That said, it turns out I'm kind of a glutton for punishment, and a lot of what's been keeping me so busy has been SUBU related, so it's not all bad!!

Here's an update on the most important bit...

On Tuesday, as one of your nominated NUS Delegates, I went with Fred and Chris up to the extraordinary conference in Wolverhampton that we as a Union voted for last term. It was an exceptionally eventful day, the purpose of which was to ratify a vote to adopt a new constitution for the NUS. Tension was running high, because the reform had already suffered a huge setback late last academic year, and a failure at this conference would have put us back at square one again. Nevertherless, the weakness of the arguments from the opposition left many of us feeling quietly confident, and we went to lunch in high spirits that we were only hours from historical and long-overdue change! (Regardless of what happened at conference, Barak Obama was only hours from his innauguration!)

After lunch, however, things took a bit of an unexpected turn for the worse. It should be noted that what happened came as no great shock to some of the membership, but nevertheless it was unpleasant in the extreme.
Just before the reform was due to go to its final vote, delegates from a number of radical left-wing unions and organisations such as the Socialists Workers Party and Student Respect stormed the stage in a last ditch attempt to subvert the course of democratic reform by holding a protest against Israel's actions in Gaza. Now, whether or not their standpoint on Middle-East politics is valid will remain a contentious point for a long time to come, and this isn't the forum for me to voice my own strong opinions on the conflict. However, what is certain and unquestionable, is that the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations had no relevance to the issues we were at conference to debate, and the scare-tactics and intimidation used by the opposition were a shameful disgrace to student politics.
The result of the protest was that one or two people of a weaker disposition started having panic attacks; Jewish students on conference floor who were feeling particularly under threat were rushed into a safe-space until the protest blew over, and the rest of the conference floor was quickly cleared so that security could regain control of the situation. After fifteen minutes or so, we were told it was safe to return to conference floor, where we could finally get on with the vote; but as it turned out, the protestors had occupied the stage and were sat cross-legged refusing to move until their voice was heard. After several minutes of shouting and jeering, a member of the National Executive Committee walked down the steps to speak at the rostrum. Not wishing to legitimise this perversion of our democratic forum, many of us simply stood up and left the room again, whilst the rest of the conference floor turned their backs on him.

Ultimately, when some sort of order had returned, we were able to get on with the vote at last.

The bad news is that the opposition never relinquished the stage... The good news is that they had made themselves look ridiculous, undermined every argument they had made over the last two years of debate on the reform, and lost every swing-vote that may have gone their way.

When the vote was called, over 90% voted in favour of the reform! The cry of excitement and celebration that went up was huge, but later celebrations were somewhat muted by the way in which the victory had come about. The fact that three elected members of the National Executive were involved in this despicable undermining of our National Union is a tragedy, and the fallout will probably be unpleasant. I strongly recommend that you read Joel Braunold(NEC)'s note which was written just after the event to see for yourself the opinions of many of the delegates at conference, as well as the President of NUS, and a video link showing the demonstration.

On Monday, Fred, Chris and I will be taking a trip to Reading for the regional conference (which I'm happy to say will be about making unbarred progress towards a new NUS structure), but in the meantime, Unions up and down the country are scuffling about trying to decide how best to act in light of Tuesday's events, and I'm going to be busying myself on more pressing issues on my own doorstep.

For now, let me wish (most of) the NEC congratulations on the reform! It will be good for Students all over the country, and if there's anyone out there reading this who wants to get involved, I highly recommend it! For all it's insanity, conference is an great experience, so come along to Annual Conference and represent Your SUBU!