In which history repeats itself.

June’s National Council was one of the first constitutional events I went to as a member of the NUS NEC-elect. At that event, I made a number of conclusions.

I concluded that the entire event was a masquerade, a mechanism of sham democracy, and a milksop to throw to our membership in between conferences to convince them that genuine channels of accountability and democratic rank-and-file control actually exist.

Nothing happened at November’s Council to change my mind about any of that.

Obviously, even tokenistic structures that go through the motions of democracy are better than no democracy at all – NC does give grassroots activists an opportunity to at least keep an eye on what’s going on at a national level even if it doesn’t allow them to influence the union’s national direction in any meaningful way. Abolishing National Council wouldn’t solve much. But with not very much reshuffling, I’m pretty sure that the union could come up with a way of creating a much more genuinely democratic structure. For example, it can’t be beyond the realms of possibility that if the largely unrepresentative Regional Conferences at which National Councillors are elected were scrapped, the money saved could be enough to restore a two-day Winter Conference. Just a thought…

Until now, National Council has operated without any bylaws. So the meeting’s first task was to set some. But, because no bylaws were in place, it meant that there was no requirement to distribute submissions or proposals in advance. So the bylaws we were supposed to adopt (or not) were put before us at the start of the meeting with no opportunity for prior consideration or contribution. They were adopted, but Council took the decision to rescind them at the end of the meeting to allow an interim process of discussion and suggestion before the next Council.

Council then broke out into groups based on NUS’s policy zones, and NEC members were grilled about “Report and Plan,” the document which details all the NEC’s current work outside the Priority Campaigns. “Grilled” is actually too strong a word – for the most part, the questions raised were done so out of curiosity rather than any apparent political disagreement with the direction of the national union’s work. One councillor (Andy Higson, VP Communications from the University of East Anglia) did raise some slightly more impassioned and not illegitimate concerns about some NEC members’ total neglect of their blogs, which we are democratically obliged to maintain or risk having our expenses withheld. His frank criticisms were about as politically intense as the Council got while I was at it.

During the reports on the Priority Campaigns, both Sian Davies (giving the report on the FE Campaign in the absence of VPFE Ellie Russell) and Julian Nicholds forgot to mention NATFHE’s national strike and rally in Birmingham this Wednesday, 16th. In Julian’s case I found this particularly frustrating as I’d specifically asked him to mention it before he began his presentation. I had to do it for them, and urged Councillors to support their local FE lecturers on strike to the fullest extent possible. One of NC’s few upsides this year is that it has a full complement of FE delegates, so it would have been a shame if this issues – which is hardly of limited import for the student movement and particularly the FE sector – had gone totally unmentioned.

I had to leave Council early, so I missed some of the motions. While I was still in attendance, two motions congratulating the NUS on its “spot-on” response to the 7/7 bombings were passed. One was slightly sharper than the other and contained clear opposition to the government’s draconian anti-terror legislation. It was amended to assert opposition to all detention without trial regardless of whether the legally permissible period is 90 or 28 days. A motion from the LGBT reps on Council calling on the NUS to exclude Stagecoach from the NUS Xtra scheme also passed; in the 1990s, Stagecoach executive Brian Souter used his millions to finance a homophobic propaganda campaign in support of Section 28. Although he has sold his controlling interest in the company, he retains his seat on its board and its name is still associated with bigotry. One of the motion’s supporters said that it did not call for a boycott, but simply stated that NUS as NUS doesn’t need to help companies run by bigots increase their profits.

National Treasurer Joe Rukin spoke against the motion, stating that as Souter was no longer the top man, Stagecoach could no longer be linked with homophobia. “And,” he said, “it’s on the FTSE for Good.” For those who don’t know, the “FTSE for Good” is a listing of “ethically screened” companies. But quite how Stagecoach can be considered genuinely “ethical” when its American operation, as LGBT Officer James-J Walsh pointed out, is engaged in union-busting, is a mystery to me.

This touched on a wider debate within the student movement about what products can be considered “ethical.” The Body Shop, for example, does massive trading off its “ethical” image, but has an appalling record of union-busting within its own workplaces. Hopefully the debate will continue. Anyhow, the Stagecoach motion passed by a large majority.

One of the motions submitted that I was unfortunately not able to stay for was a motion of censure against National Secretary Gemma Tumelty on the basis that she organised Regional Conferences during the last week of the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan. Anyone who’s read this blog before will know that me and Gemma are hardly on the same side politically but I thought that the attempt to censure her on that basis was a bit ridiculous.

There are only so many weeks in the year, and Ramadan lasts for a whole month: was Gemma supposed to invent an extra month in which to run the conferences she is constitutionally required to organise? I am told that Jamal El-Shayyal (himself a religious Muslim) spoke against the motion, saying that during Ramadan, Muslims try to go about their business normally and wouldn’t be impeded from attending a conference. Apparently the mover of the motion withdrew it following Jamal’s intervention.

Earlier in the meeting, another motion was passed that concerned the accessibility of NC meetings and resolved to ensure that people with learning difficulties or other disabilities would have access to large-print motions and other necessary provisions. Undoubtedly, some people would compare SWD access issues to other “access” issues – if we’re striving to make our meetings accessible to students with disabilities, shouldn’t we put similar efforts into making sure they’re accessible to students with religious commitments?

But religious observance is a social and cultural choice; being disabled is not something people choose. The two things aren’t comparable, which is why I think Jamal’s contribution slightly misses the point; it’s not the nature of the religious practise in question that makes it unreasonable to censure Gemma, it’s the fact that the NUS can’t possibly organise its events to accommodate everyone’s socio-cultural priorities all the time.

Obviously, unnecessary clashes with religious and cultural events (especially ones that occur infrequently) should be avoided, but there are only so many days and weeks in a year. The recently re-published NUS Black Students’ Handbook contains a guide to various religions and their practises. Among the religions included are Neo-Paganism and Voodoo. Are NUS Officers going to be censured in future if events they organise clash with Pagan or Voodoo festivals? I’m not trying to suggest here that Voodoo or Paganism are less legitimate religions than Islam (in my view all religious are more or less equally irrational) – I’m simply pointing out that if the logic of the motion of censure was applied consistently then no-one in NUS would be allowed to organise anything ever.

At October’s NEC, National Women’s Officer Jo Salmon raised concerns that an event scheduled for a Saturday might alienate Jewish students, as Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. Peter Leary spoke out strongly against those concerns, putting broadly similar arguments to the ones I’ve put here. As I’ve said, I was no longer at Council when the debate over censuring Gemma took place, but I’m told Pete didn’t contribute.

So that was that. Another few months, another National Council gone by. But hey - maybe I’m being unnecessarily cynical here. Maybe this year’s crop of councillors, with its full complement of FE reps and individuals like Katie Shaw (if you don’t know who she is read this), will start to develop a genuine link between on-the-ground campaigns and the national union’s structures. We’ll see.

Speaking of on-the-ground campaigns, everyone’ll hopefully have heard about the anti-sweatshop week of action coming up in February 2006 (11-18th). It’s being organised mainly by No Sweat and is fully backed by the NUS. If you’re interested in anti-sweatshop campaigning, and if you’re looking for a way to reconnect activists on your campus with your union and its structures (whether you’re an existing officer or just a regular student looking to take some activist energy into a non-political and docile union), this initiative is for you. Contact me (daniel.randall@nus.org.uk or 07961040618) for more details, and in the meantime, how about taking a delegation from your institution to No Sweat’s annual conference on 26th November at SOAS in Central London. It’ll be an opportunity to liase with student activists from all over the country, and if you’re unwaged or low-waged (and let’s face it, most of us are), it only costs £4. Book online at ----

Hopefully see some of you there –

Daniel Randall

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