Update, 21 February: Since this article was written, Aaron Porter has announced that he will not re-run for president, making him only the second NUS leader since 1969 not to serve a second term. NUS Scotland president Liam Burns and NUS VP Further Education Shane Chowen - both right-wingers who supported Porter's election last year - have announced their candidacies.
The political line we adopted in the original statement is still valid:
"Whatever happens, such wobbling under pressure at the top of the NUS bureaucracy is good news - but none of it should deter the student left from our offensive. We should continue to call for Porter’s resignation now and build the strongest possible left-wing challenge to the right-wing candidate for NUS President, whoever it is."
1 February: It seems the leaders of the factions which dominate the National Union of Students are considering replacing Aaron Porter with an alternative candidate for NUS President.
On Sunday 30 January, the morning after Porter was chased off the Manchester anti-cuts demonstration by hundreds of angry students, an AWL student organiser had breakfast with a National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts sympathiser inside the Labour Students hierarchy. Our source told us that the Labour Students leadership is getting extremely jittery about supporting Porter’s campaign to be re-elected. Feelers are being put out to leading figures in the ‘Organised Independents’ group of student union and NUS officers, and other supporters of the current leadership, about finding an alternative to Porter, who is now widely regarded in these circles as a liability.
(Porter, like many NUS officers, is a member of the Labour Party, but was not elected as a Labour Students candidate. Together these various groups make up the broadly ‘Blairite’ majority on NUS National Executive Council, which has had such a disgraceful record in recent months.)
Porter has not been particularly more right-wing than other recent NUS Presidents. Faced with the greatest upsurge of student protests for more than two decades, however, he has repeatedly been made to look like a fool. There has been widespread outcry about his record - supporting a graduate tax, condemning student ‘violence’ on 10 November, refusing to support later walk outs and protests, lying to occupiers about providing legal support, being exposed writing to the Tories urging them to cut grants... This came to head with the dramatic events of 29 January.
An NUS President being forced to step down after one year in office (or standing again, but losing after being abandoned by his key backers) is unprecedented. Yet in the current situation, it is not surprising that many of his former supporters think standing him again is too much of a risk. It is like a small-scale, comedy version of what sometimes happens in revolutionary situations, when elites ditch an unpopular figurehead to avoid popular mobilisations going too far and threatening the whole structure of power. Porter is too vulnerable a target for attacks from the student left.
There is still almost a month until the nominations deadline for full-time positions on NUS NEC (25 February). If it goes ahead, it will be interesting to see how Porter’s removal is spun, who they find to replace him and whether he will stand anyway. Whatever happens, such wobbling under pressure at the top of the NUS bureaucracy is good news - but none of it should deter the student left from our offensive. We should continue to call for Porter’s resignation now and build the strongest possible left-wing challenge to the right-wing candidate for NUS President, whoever it is.
Aaron Porter's statement
Dear All
The last few months have been momentous. Our response to the Government’s austerity measures will go down in the history books. We’ve kick started a wave of student action, brought the coalition to its knees, and we’ve shaped the public debate on education in an unprecedented fashion. This campaign began over 3 years ago- a long-term strategy to deliver a real alternative to a market in fees, and it’s a campaign I have been heavily involved in from the very beginning as a student officer in Leicester, as Vice President (Higher Education) and then as NUS President.
The Government’s decision to treble tuition fees was a bitter pill to swallow- and whilst a number of concessions were secured, notably for part-time students as well as an increased threshold of repayment for all graduates, this was still not the outcome we wanted. Thousands of students will now decide that Higher Education is not for them- and the ones that do get to go will be plunged into an era of market chaos. It’s a tragedy- and one that requires relentless pressure, both locally and nationally, to ensure that it is exposed and replaced with something better as soon as possible.
So this new regime brings with it a new landscape, and I believe NUS now needs reinvigorating into the next phase of this campaign. After considerable soul searching, I believe there needs to be a new President to lead the student movement into that next phase. As a result, I’ve resolved not to seek re-election at National Conference this year.
The challenge for a new National President will be great. They’ll need to support students’ unions and student officers to get the best deal for students, whilst running a major national campaign to defeat damaging marketization in education. They’ll need to build activism and radicalism on the ground whilst defending legitimate, democratic students’ unions from attack from our enemies. Above all, they’ll need a fresh outlook- because if we are to reach out, and engage with, the full diversity of our membership, we need to move beyond the tired rhetoric and redundant tactics of some factional groups.
I want to say thank you to the hundreds of students and student officers who have been so supportive this year, and indeed for the nominations for a second term which I had already been sent. It goes without saying that with a white paper on its way, the next four months remain a huge opportunity for the organisation, and I will be relentless in ensuring I do the very best I can in the role.
We should continue to be proud of what we have achieved, and it has been an honour to be President at this time. If I have one criticism of this year, it would be that we have not been quick enough to talk about our achievements - and I hope we can pause for a moment to remedy this.
Let’s push on to make sure we credit ourselves for what we have achieved, and ensure we work together to push NUS and the student movement to the next level.
In unity,
Aaron