After student conference

Submitted by Anon on 9 April, 2009 - 2:40 Author: Chris Marks

The National Union of Students conference (31 March-2 April) saw the union’s right-wing leadership in the ascendant. Having passed their new anti-democratic constitution, they used the momentum to ride roughshod over the left:

• Right-wingers repeatedly claimed that it is unrealistic to demand free education in the middle of a recession They wheeled out the old theme of pensioners, the NHS, schools etc. being more deserving — as if these services are underfunded because of students, rather than bank bail outs and tax cuts for the rich!;

• The conference voted to ditch even nominal support for free education and to campaign for a graduate tax;

• Labour Students president Wes Streeting was re-elected with 81 percent of the vote;

• Attempts to modify the new constitution were defeated; the leadership pushed through all their appointments to the new Trustee Board, including the Sheffield University pro-VC who threatened to use the police against student occupiers and an executive at Lloyds!;

• The call for a national demonstration was voted down, as was support for the recent wave of occupations over Gaza.

Partly because of the G20 protests, but also because of the effect of defeat over the new constitution, the left presence at the conference had shrunk. Only Education Not for Sale and the SWP had any real organised presence.

However there are some positive signs:

• In elections to the “student section” of the Trustee Board, ENS and Workers’ Liberty supporter Daniel Randall was elected top by a long way, having given a speech in which he promised to “cause trouble”. Education Not for Sale’s fringe meeting was well attended.

• Student activism in the world outside NUS is reviving.

The student left needs to:

• Begin organising for a new federation of student unions independent of the structures of NUS. Such a federation could organise actions such as the recent free education demo much more effectively than an ad hoc activist coalition.

• Get its act together in NUS. The left did not have enough motions at the conference, allowing the right to dominate politically; we need a united left slate for the national executive. The SWP’s insistence that differences over the Middle East make unity impossible is a barrier.

• Organise for direct action over fees and marketisation. The Gaza occupation movement, and the rise of big education campaigns at e.g. the Liverpool universities, Salford, and London Met, show what is possible. We need occupations to demand the abolition of fees, an end to cuts and marketisation and decent funding for education.

www.free-education.org.uk

education.not.for.sale@gmail.com

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