My accounts of NEC meetings are usually misery reports telling of meetings in which politics are pushed off the agenda in preference to some pointless bureaucratic dalliance. At 4:15, it looked like this meeting would turn out like that too. It was scheduled to finish at 5:00, and no motions had been discussed.

But, in an extraordinary stroke of luck, the meeting was blessed by a brief and concise “Management Update” from National Director Andy Grant. Finally, we were going to discuss some motions. Even though they came right at the end of the meeting, I think the very fact of their discussion is an event of sufficient magnitude to merit putting it at the start of this report.

Of course, there are criticisms and caveats here. If the meeting had started at 11:00 at scheduled and not 11:45, we would have had more time still. If the meeting had not wasted time on another needless, circuitous argument about the autonomy (or otherwise) of the International Students’ Campaign (which mutated into an argument about whether such an argument was appropriate given that the International Students’ Officer had left the meeting), then we would have had yet more time. If concerns raised early on about the minutes of previous meetings had been put more succinctly, maybe we would even have had a full hour to discuss motions.

But hey – look on the bright side. Racing through 11 motions at breakneck speed is better than not discussing any at all, ever. Only one motion fell off the agenda, and unfortunately it was about free education campaigning. I think that shows we’ve still got a long way to go in terms of the culture at NEC meetings and within the union generally, but October’s meeting was definitely an improvement on previous ones.

Two of the three motions that I submitted passed. The motion on an anti-sweatshop week of action on campuses passed unanimously, and the two co-convenors of the Environmental & Ethical Campaign made very positive and encouraging noises about incorporating the week of action into their E&E work.

The anti-sweatshop week of action could be an extremely important initiative for the NUS. Anti-sweatshop campaigning is an issue that can unite a wide range of activist groups on campus; from trade and social justice campaigners to refugee rights activists. Crucially, this initiative could also help reengage the NUS nationally with the activist base of the student movement by proving it is capable of developing proper campaigns around the issues on which students are active.

The ‘Solidarity with Gate Gourmet workers’ motion (resubmitted from the last NEC, since when the dispute has been, as some on the NEC put it, “resolved,” or, as I put it, “sold out”) passed in parts; I accepted two of the changes, but opposed the proposal to remove the part resolving to donate £500 to the Gate Gourmet Workers Support Group. Unfortunately, the part was removed but this was on the proviso that a discussion would be entered into about donating a smaller amount. You'll be able to read the motion as passed on the web shortly.

My motion on affiliating to Iraq Union Solidarity, the grassroots labour movement campaign for solidarity with the Iraqi workers’ movement, was not put, on the basis that no-one knew enough about what IUS is. I voted against the proposal that the question not be put, but I understand other NEC members’ concerns.

The fact that people feel they don’t know enough about IUS is principally my fault. I have been incredibly busy recently but this is no excuse for not circulating basic information about IUS to the rest of the NEC to back up my motion. It certainly would have helped me counter Pete Leary’s accusation that IUS is “a fake organisation.” “No-one else is affiliated to it,” he said, “so why should we be?”

Perhaps, then, Pete would like to explain to any one of the dozens of trade union branches affiliated to IUS why he feels it appropriate to refer to them as “no-one.”

I’m a generous and giving person, so I’m more than happy to grant Pete the benefit of the doubt here – he’s obviously simply not done his research and I’m sure he doesn’t mean to imply that an organisation to which dozens of trade union branches are affiliated doesn’t actually exist. I’m sure he’d be outraged at the suggestion that he doesn’t take rank-and-file labour movement bodies seriously, so when I resubmit this motion backed up with comprehensive information on IUS, I trust that Pete will vote for it. He did, after all, explicitly say, “I support trade unions and the struggle for workers’ rights in Iraq,” and said that the resolution to affiliate to IUS was the only part of the motion he had a problem with. Presumably, then, once his fears about IUS’ existence have been assuaged he’ll be happy to vote for the motion in its entirety next time. To do otherwise would be somewhat hypocritical.

In the meantime, if people want to find out more about what Iraq Union Solidarity is and what it does, then IUS’s own website is a good first port-of-call. Check it out here: www.iraqworkerssolidarity.org

Two of Pete’s own motions also passed, one on opposing terrorism through “united communities” and one committing the NUS to publicising a conference of Israeli, Palestinian and British human rights lawyers aimed at highlighting Israel’s breaches of international law.

I voted for the “united communities” motion despite concerns over the class nature of the statement it calls on the NUS to back – a statement supported by trade unions but also by various religious organisations and “MPs from across the political spectrum.” There are parallels here with the Unite Against Fascism campaign, which also claims Lib Dems, far-right Tories such as Sir Teddy Taylor and even Ulster Unionists such as Reverend Martyn Smith amongst its supporters. I think it’s acceptable to vote in favour of support for UAF or, in this case, for Pete’s “united communities” motion on the basis that, at a grassroots level, working-class forces should be able to take control of the campaign and steer it away from the direction that the right-wing figures (which apparently, like UAF, include Tory MPs) within it would wish to see it take.

I submitted two amendments to Pete’s motion on Palestine. One resolved to publicise the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace’s upcoming fact-finding tour to the Occupied Territories. For information, the FFIPP is a group of academics mainly based in London active on issue such as education access in Palestine. You can find out more about them on their website - www.ffipp.org

Pete was happy to accept that amendment, which pleased me although I found it curious that he didn’t raise any questions about whether the FFIPP was a “real” organisation.

He was less happy with my other amendment, which resolved to “reaffirm existing NUS policy on Palestine: immediate Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, solidarity with the Palestinians and Israeli internationalists.”

His opposition struck me as somewhat bizarre. When I’d spoke to Student Broad Left (the organisation of which Pete is a member) activists before, they’d said that they had a two-states policy on Israel/Palestine because that was the policy of the PLO, and their feeling was that activists internationally should take their positions on national liberation movements from those leading them. Fair enough: it’s a slightly bizarre conception of internationalism, but not the most unreasonable position I’ve ever heard on the matter by a long stretch. So I figured Pete must have a different reason for opposing the amendment.

And sure enough, he did. Apparently, it’s not NUS policy. “Where do you get that policy from?” he asked. A fair question, and to my discredit I did not make a clear note of exactly where the policy came from when I wrote the amendment.

At the 19th September Emergency NEC, Pete announced that he was "an activist and a bureaucrat." I should have known, therefore, that he'd need more than just my word before believing that something is NUS policy.

Having gone over my papers since, I hope to once again set Pete’s mind at rest. The policy comes from a motion passed by the NEC of 13th May 2005 that calls for "Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories, a fully independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, solidarity with the Palestinians and Israeli internationalists."

This is the exact text of my amendment - word for word - and I'm informed that Pete voted for this policy at the NEC in May, so unless he's undergone a change of heart, and unless the SBL comrades I spoke to were lying about their position on the matter, I trust that Pete will be happy to incorporate similar amendments into the text of any motions he submits on the matter in future.

Genuinely positive motions on climate change, the Rolle College closure (for more on that, see here:www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/danielrandall/271381.aspx), the government’s Mental Health Bill, anti-racism and the accessibility of NEC meetings were also passed. As I said earlier, there’s still along way to go but this meeting was a step in the right direction on the motions front.

The political tussle happening on the Priority Campaigns front did not progress so well. The report on the progress of the Education Campaign contained little commitment to action beyond the production and distribution of various documents. At the last NEC (the Emergency NEC of 19th September), the NOLSies had submitted a paper outlining various concrete activities that could be incorporated into the Education Campaign, including a national demo in 2006. The paper passed almost unanimously, with Vice President Education Julian Nicholds welcoming the NOLSies’ proposals by saying, “they’re everything I’ve been saying for the past two months.”

NOLSie indignation was therefore understandable when none of their suggestions seemed to have been taken up, despite Nicholds’ enthusiastic support on the 19th. Julian’s explanation, which essentially amounted to “these things takes time”, didn’t seem too convincing when held up against his assertion on the 19th that the proposals were “already in the campaign.” The theme of mixed messages from Julian continued when he called for more suggestions and input to the Education Campaign from other members of the NEC while simultaneously bemoaning the way that the Campaign’s development had been stalled because “it seems to attract more motions and suggestions than any other.”

Apart from its current lack of concrete content and its less-than-militant tone, another personal gripe with the Education Campaign is the way in which it places an emphasis on lobbying the Tories and Lib Dems not to change their policies on education funding. In the meeting, I criticised this perspective and suggested that it resembled “business unionism.” This is a term from American politics used to refer to the way in which unions there have no conception of political representation or self-assertion, but simply back parties or candidates on the basis of a market-place relationship to individual policies.

An ostensibly less-bad policy on education funding than that of the current government does not, I suggested, make the Tories or Liberal Democrats our allies or supporters. While everyone agreed that the Tories and Lib Dems weren’t “allies,” the overall perspective was defended not only by Julian himself, but also by the NOLSies and even attracted support from one of my fellow revolutionaries on the NEC when Pete Leary also weighed in to defend the idea. The debate, I hope, will go on.

The updates from National Treasures Joe Rukin and Managing Director Andy Grant also yielded some points of interest. Rukin gave a clear and explicit indication that further cuts will probably have to be made to next year’s NEC travel budget – another blow for political activism in the union. Even staunch supporters of the “reform” (i.e. cuts) process such as Sian Davies are coming to the end of their tethers. “We’ve been asked to cut and cut again,” Sian said, “and we’ve done it. But we won’t make any more cuts to our campaigning budgets until we can see, in black and white, the savings we’re making.”

Well, not to put too fine a point on it…quite.

Andy Grant rightly said that a continued programme of cuts was never going to get the NUS out of its financial hole, and that it was necessary to look at ways of increasing income. I agree, but unfortunately many senior figures seem to think that charging cash-strapped students for discounts the NUS should be providing anyway is a reasonable way of doing it.

Andy also informed us that NUS is in the process of employing a “business analyst” to look into ways of increasing the organisation’s income. Far be it from to question Andy’s professional judgement, but is shelling out more cash to pay yet another full-time bureaucrat with little or no connection to the political life of the union really the best allocation of the NUS’s thinly stretched resources?

There’s no doubt that positive things came out of this meeting. It was heartening to see two of my own motions, along with many other good motions, finally get discussed and passed. The generally increased level of political debate was also a positive factor. I am, therefore, somewhat loathe to end on a negative note, but an event that took place only an hour into the meeting cast a long shadow over proceedings and it would be ridiculous not to mention it.

James Knight, the President of NUS Wales, resigned from his position for what an NUS press release is calling “health reasons.” In a passionate statement, he explained that a consistent and systematic campaign of bullying and harassment had taken place against him in Wales and, despite giving him assurances that it was being dealt with, the leadership nationally had done nothing in response. He spoke of a culture of apathy towards bullying and vicious personal abuse within the organisation which, in James’ case, went as far as virulent homophobia.

JK will be a loss to the NEC. In the last few months, on issues such as the Education Campaign and – initially, at any rate, – the national demonstration, the NOLSies have functioned as de facto lefts on the NEC, or at least as people who are serious about developing a political, activist union. While it goes without saying that I disagree with a lot of JK’s soft-left, social-democratic politics, losing such a person from the NEC cannot but strengthen the position of the apolitical leaders of NUS.

Undoubtedly, JK knows this, and the fact that he resigned even with this knowledge makes his decision all the more serious. If his mental wellbeing was at stake in such a way as to make resignation the only option, the situation was clearly dire.

Once again, the question that rears its head is simple: why has a culture in which this can happen been allowed to develop? Why have political debate and argument given way to baseless personal abuse and bullying?

And, once again, the answer is simple. It’s because, under Kat Fletcher’s leadership, the NUS’s structures have become increasingly bureaucratised and its culture increasingly de-politicised. In conditions of such extreme atrophy and political vacuum, behaviour such as that which led JK to resign is allowed to fester and grow.

This time, a £14,000 inquiry conducted by a be-suited bureaucrat won’t be necessary. A concerted fight against bureaucracy and for a democratic, political culture in NUS that doesn’t allow the personal to replace the political on any level most definitely will be.

In solidarity -

Daniel Randall

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