At a tiny, unrepresentative “special conference” in June, the right-wing leadership of the National Union of Students (NUS) moved a step closer to its long-cherished goal of completely banishing ordinary students from involvement in the national union by passing a raft of anti-democratic “reforms”.
These measures, which include limiting the size and length of NUS National Conference, were successful only because they received the support of Kat Fletcher, the new NUS president elected on a platform of… defending democracy!
The leadership has justified its cuts by reference to NUS’s £500,000 financial shortfall —a shortfall for which its bureaucratic mismanagement and weak political leadership are largely responsible.
Limiting democracy will only sap student involvement in NUS and exacerbate the crisis in the long term. That’s why it’s vital that the “reformers” are defeated at the second “special conference” likely to take place in November.
Join our campaign to defend and strengthen democracy inside the NUS:
l nusdemocracy@hotmail.com
l www.nusdemocracy.org.uk
