Motions remitted from NUS conference to the 9 May National Executive – what I’ll be saying, what I think activists should say
On Thursday 9 May, at the first meeting of NUS National Executive Council attended by me and a number of my NCAFC comrades, NEC members will discuss a large amount of policy “remitted” from NUS National Conference.
This is happening because NUS conference has, over the years, been cut to the bone. 20 years ago NUS had two annual conferences, one five days and one three. Now it has one barely more than two. This has, of course, gone together with various other attacks on our national union’s democracy.
The situation is made worse by the fact that the leadership and its supporters submit reams of ultra-bland filler “policy” which makes no difference to anything. The agenda gets clogged up with this stuff, preventing the discussion of more substantive issues and disagreements (mainly, but not exclusively, put forward by the left), by burying them so far down the agenda they get ‘guillotined’.
In addition, most “big” political issues get stuck in the Society and Citizenship Zone, which is always deprioritised. This year, Society and Citizenship barely got half an hour! When the leadership don’t want something discussed, it can even be moved from the Zone it was submitted in to S&C – as was done this year with anti-racism/anti-fascism.
Most, though not all, of the motions remitted to the NEC are from Society and Citizenship. They include some very important issues for the student movement and the world more generally.
I won’t comment on every motion here, but will try to highlight what I see as some of the key or most controversial issues (which doesn’t mean the motions I don’t comment on are unimportant). This is so activists know where I stand on them and what contribution I’ll attempt to make at the NEC meeting (I can’t vote yet!), but also to provoke much wider debate and discussion.
I should apologise for not getting this stuff out sooner. In general I’ll try to get things out well in advance of NEC meetings, so activists can feed back to me and we can work together to put pressure on the NEC.
(The NEC papers, with remitted motions starting on p53 of 80, can be read here
Motion 326 – Marketisation (Birkbeck)
This motion highlights McDonalds’ infiltration of our education, calls for them to be stripped of qualification-awarding powers and seeks to terminate the cosy relationship NUSSL (NUS’s commercial arm – or now it would be more accurate to say, fully commercial arm) has with them. I will be supporting this. I suspect the leadership will oppose it or seek to gut it, as they have a tendency to avoid anything that could upset NUSSL bureaucrats. Money before political principles! But let’s see.
Amendment 403a – Ethical sourcing/investment (Birmingham Uni)
This amendment, no doubt developed by People & Planet activists at Birmingham Uni (where they work closely with Defend Education/NCAFC), seeks to give some teeth to Recommendation 403 by proposing a campaign around the Workers’ Rights Consortium model code of conduct. S&C Zone Committee is opposing this, presumably on the grounds that it is too concrete/radical. I look forward to hearing their ridiculous arguments. If this amendment is voted down, P&P and other student workers’ rights activists on campus need to start a discussion about what to do about NUS.
Amendment 405a – Child poverty (Birmingham Uni, Royal Holloway)
Again, an attempt to add some teeth to a Recommendation. This very short amendment sets out the kind of demands necessary to really tackle poverty – a living minimum wage without exemptions, benefits which you can live on and which rise so their value doesn’t depreciate, creating decent jobs in the public sector (the rich and the banks should pay) and scrapping the anti-union laws so workers can organise for their rights. Inroads into poverty in the past weren’t simply handed down from above. They were won from below by organisation and struggle, and aiming high. That’s the approach we need now.
I’m working for a charity that works with children who are in the majority, living in poverty or at the bottom end of the economic scale. The kind of approach outlined in this motion will do little to help them. I’m quite keen to write more on this later.
Btw, I don’t agree with Further Believes 8 of the main Recommendation. I don’t see why people on a wage as low as the “living wage” should have to pay taxes at all.
Motion 411 – Council cuts (Northumbria Uni, Newcastle Uni)
It’s a shame this motion doesn’t say anything more radical (like supporting the Councillors Against the Cuts network) but it gives a base to build on and it’s important that it passes.
Motion 415 – Responding to NHS reform (Kent Uni, Manchester Uni) and amendment 415a (Kings College London, Birmingham Uni, Royal Holloway, Goldsmiths
At conference, VP Welfare Pete Mercer said that NUS hadn’t campaigned on the NHS this year because it didn’t have a mandate from the 2012 conference! This is typical of the bureaucratic idiocy that characterises so much of what the NUS leadership does, and it’s bizarre that the Welfare Zone isn’t campaigning on what is arguably the biggest welfare issue for students (and the rest of the country). The NHS is a huge issue for students and for all of us: let’s pass this policy and build a powerful student movement in defence of our health service. (There’s a student contingent on the 18 May London demonstration in defence of the NHS and a student meeting afterwards – see this facebook event ) and this one )
Motion 416 – Challenging Racism & Fascism on our campuses and in our communities (Black Students Committee, Mid Kent College, Birmingham South & City College, Dudley College, LSE, Birmingham Uni, Worcester Technology College and Gateshead)
This is the motion the leadership were so determined not to discuss at national conference. Let’s be on the look out for any more chicanery at the NEC, and get it passed.
Well done to NCAFC SUs for getting stuff on the fight against anti-traveller/Roma racism in there.
Amendment 416a (Royal Holloway)
This amendment seeks to understand why the far right is a growing threat across Europe and how we can fight it effectively. That means mass mobilisation on the streets and raising the kind of social demands necessary to undercut the fascists’ demagogy. It means not being afraid to criticise the record of the last Labour government and the current Labour leadership. Naturally, Labour Students and co. will oppose this. The question is whether anyone on the left, miseducated by the SWP’s soft liberal anti-fascism, will.
Motion 418 – the Bedroom Tax (Kings)
This is a massive issue and we should support the motion and act on it!
Motion 419 – Hands Off Africa and the Middle East (Worcester College, Dudley College, NUS Black Students Cttee, Mid Kent College, Gateshead College) / Motion 426 – Syria (Manchester Uni, Newcastle Uni)
What this motion represents is the Stalinist politics of Socialist Action aka SBL, which I would call “reactionary anti-imperialism” – lining up with anyone, as long as they’re against the West. This is the same politics that led to the Galloway and Assange fiasco. The writers of the motion weren’t brave enough to say it, but the thought underlying it is support for regimes like Assad’s in Syria. Hence the stuff about Western support for the Syrian rebels, when in fact events in Syria including the sectarian degeneration of the rebels have been shaped by the fact the Western powers really don’t want to intervene.
Yes, we should oppose war and imperialism, but not like this. Unless the motion is stripped down to the support-worthy bits (like opposition to Trident), I’ll be voting against. And I’ll be voting to support motion 426 from Manchester Uni and Newcastle Unis on supporting Syrian students!
Motion 422 – an NUS for migrants’ rights (International Students’ Committee)
Very important indeed!
Motion 423 – Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel (Sheffield Uni, Goldsmiths)
This is an issue on which I suspect different NCAFC members on the NEC will go different ways. I can only speak for myself, though an increasing number of people on the student left share something like this view. I will be opposing most of this motion.
In summary: I think BDS does less to help the Palestinians (because it will drive Israeli workers into the arms of the Israeli government and the right) and more to tap into a reactionary narrative which seeks to delegitimise not Israel’s occupation of Palestine but Israel’s very existence. I am against that. A single state for both peoples would certainly be desirable, but it can only happen voluntarily. The Israelis do not have the right to oppress the Palestinians, but they do have the right to self-determination.
So I will be seeking to move positive parts on the bits of the motion I support (opposition to the occupation, solidarity with Palestinian students’ struggle for education) and opposing the call for a general boycott of Israel.
For a more detailed argument on why boycotts of Israel are in general not a good idea, see this 2010 briefing.
Motion 424 – Greece (Royal Holloway, Birmingham Uni)
The motion is self-explanatory, but again very important. If it passes, we need to fight to make sure it is carried out.
Motion 425 – Europe (Royal Holloway)
This motion explains why anti-EU agitation is an essentially right-wing cause. Our response to the coordination of capitalist attacks across Europe should not be to advocate a “left-wing” version of British nationalism, but to seek to build our own cross-European links. At a time when we are seeing the rise of UKIP, we need to have this argument urgently. I’m sorry, btw, that the SWP and SP members on the NEC will oppose this – another sign of how much the far left needs sorting out!
Motion 428 (listed in document as a second 423) – Coordinated action with the trade union movement (Ruskin College, University of the Arts London)
As a socialist trade union activist, I’m not convinced that this motion has a lot of strategy – I think the union bureaucrats talking about a general strike while they demobilize every actual struggle against cuts and austerity is unlikely to come to much. Nonetheless, it’s important that the NEC passes this motion to reiterate our solidarity with workers’ struggles and put down a market for student coordination with strikes and disputes in the months and years ahead.
Agree or disagree on any of this? Get in touch to tell me what you think and discuss!