The NEC delegation meeting is the meeting at which the NEC decides which motions it’s going to submit to National Conference – one for each of NUS’s four policy “zones.” Each zone had at least two submissions in it, so for each we had the choice of either simply voting-off between all submitted motions, or breaking out into compositing groups to try and amalgamate the submissions.

Compositing is a frustrating process at the best of times, so to try and write a detailed report of what took place would be like reliving the tedium and frustration of the meeting minute by minutes. So I’ll avoid that and try and give a succinct summary instead.

In the Education zone, I’d somewhat foolishly submitted a motion on the government’s recent Education White Paper rather than on general education funding. Consequently, I attempted a somewhat botched pre-composite with Julian Nicholds, whose motion said the right things (oppose the lifting of the top-up fees cap, work with trade unions, call a first-term national demo, fight for democratically controlled education funded by progressive taxation – you know the stuff) albeit in a rather timid way. My amendments added a clearer emphasis on progressive taxation being the central demand.

Pitted against this was an ostensibly more comprehensive motion from Pete Leary that I didn’t see until after I’d submitted – and, partially, had accepted – my amendments to Julian’s motion. It mentioned issues such as course cuts and international students’ fees and resolved to “re-affirm NUS’s existing policy” and build an “active and inclusive campaign.”

Unfortunately, it failed to go even as far as Julian’s motion in terms of its arguments; it did not mention progressive taxation at all. It also failed to set a timescale for the national demo, simply calling for a “London based national demonstration” but stopping short of specifying when it should take place.

It was more comprehensive in terms of the issues it mentioned, but without key demands such as the demand for progressive taxation and democratic control of education, calls for “active campaigns” are simply abstract.

My primary concern in this zone was attempting to get the slogan “tax the rich” into whatever motion was passed. Julian wouldn’t accept it as an amendment and it apparently didn’t occur to the self-proclaimed revolutionary socialist Pete Leary to use it.

It was decided that no further compositing would take place, so it was down to a straight vote-off between the two motions.

A better understanding on my part of the processes of the meeting might have helped avoid such a situation, in which the choice came down to a motion that dealt with a wide range of important issues but failed to raise essential underlying demands, and one that raised the right demands but in a timid and limited way. I reluctantly voted for Julian’s motion, but Pete’s motion passed. Maybe I should have abstained, but the direction of my vote is not really the issue here; the issue is the fact that, once again, the NUS NEC will be avoiding the slogan “tax the rich” like the plague. Even the “left” on the NEC can’t bring itself to say it. Hopefully some CMs can - people who think the NUS should have something to say about the range of issues we should be campaigning on and making essential arguments about how education should be funded and organised should start writing and submitting their amendments as soon as possible. *

In the Strong and Active Unions zone, the NEC will be submitting a motion whose primary purpose is to sing the praises of the NUS Extra card. Tiny victories were won when resolutions to maintain the Block of 12 and help CMs overcome ultra vires laws were added in, but on the whole the motion was pretty appalling.

When it came to the vote, I moved “parts” and proposed the removal of everything referring to the NUS Extra card as a success and as something positive (which basically meant the whole motion). This proposal won a might three votes (myself and two others – Pete and Suzie Wylie) and so the NEC will once again be telling conference that a card paid for by individuals is the key way forward in terms of funding for the NUS at the same time as we claim to oppose all moves towards individual or tiered membership.

The composite in the Welfare zone degenerated into a needlessly unpleasant affair and eventually broke down altogether, leading to a straight vote-out between the three motions proposed; mine (focusing on students’ rights in the workplace), Pav Akhtar’s (focusing on anti-racist campaigning) and Veronica King’s (a more general motion that tried to cover a range of issues).

Veronica’s motion passed overwhelmingly and there are definitely positives in it; for example, it commits NUS to encouraging NUS members with jobs to join a trade union. Its weakness is that in trying to deal with everything it ends up saying not very much about anything, but in general motions intended to overarch an entire policy zone this is almost inevitable.

The Society and Citizenship zone is often the most controversial, and I’d submitted text on supporting democracy in the Middle East not because I thought it would pass, but largely because I wanted to stoke up a bit of controversy.

There wasn’t too much debate, but Jamal El-Shayyal did raise a “point of information”. He took “great offence” at one point in my motion that attacked the US/UK occupation’s newly implemented Iraqi constitution. The constitution contains a clause that says “no law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed principles of Islam.” My motion pointed out that this will have a massively negative impact on women’s, LGBT and other democratic rights in Iraq. Jamal’s “point of information” was that “it’s deeply offensive to suggest that my religion is anti-women or anti-democratic.” He expressed his hope that such “offensive” sentiments never made it onto conference floor.

I was given a right of reply, which I used to argue that no set of beliefs, ideas or opinions – religious or otherwise – are above criticism. If criticism of those ideas causes offence to those who hold them then that’s unfortunate, but it does not make the criticism illegitimate, inaccurate or inappropriate.

I make no apologies whatsoever for the fact that I believe that the “principles of Islam”, along with the “principles” of every other religion on this planet, are fundamentally anti-human and, to varying degrees, anti-women and anti-democratic. I think this is particularly true of the three major western religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Jamal has the perfect right to disagree with that view (and indeed to try and convince me that the “principles of Islam” are in fact implicitly feminist and pro-gay rights) but he has no right to suggest I shouldn’t make my argument simply because he finds it “offensive.”

Unlike Jamal, I hope that text on the issue of theocratic rule in the Middle East (as imposed by the puppets of US/UK imperialism in Iraq, or as maintained by the semi-fascist regime in Iran, or as advocated by Israel’s far-right rabbinic lobby) does make it onto conference floor. These arguments need to be had out in the open, not confined to NEC meeting where we squabble over whether the issues are too “offensive” to be discussed.

After the inexplicable “annual NEC photo” (I’ve never seen an “annual NEC photo” anywhere before so I don’t really know what it’s for), it was back to the office, where someone had sent Gemma an Advent calendar. I’ve only got a vague idea of what these things are for – until the age of 15 I was a religious Jew so I didn’t have one, and since the age of 15 I’ve been a militant atheist and secularist so I still don’t have one. The basic idea is that you open some boxes and eat some chocolate, right? Something like that, anyway.

So here’s my idea – instead of taking an “annual NEC photo,” we should produce an annual calendar counting down to key dates like the close of nominations for National Conference. Providing NEC members with a confectionary-based distraction during the winter months in which factional plotting gets properly underway would undoubtedly go a long way to diffusing some of the tension that was in such plentiful evidence in today’s meeting.

Maybe we can ring-fence some funds raised by the NUS Extra card to pay for it. Then at least it’ll have been useful for something.

In solidarity –

Daniel Randall

* I’ve come in for some stick because of the way I voted in this debate. It’s been suggested that I voted against Pete’s motion either out of sectarian rivalry with Pete (“a refusal to vote for anything I put forward”, as Pete himself put it) or because I’m somehow opposed to the NUS “stepping up its campaigning” on free education, which is apparently what it’s about to do now that Pete’s motion’s been passed.

The first accusation (that of sectarian rivalry) is daft. I’ve voted with Pete on many motions so far this year, and as I pointed out earlier in this blog, Pete was one of only two other people who voted for my proposal to remove parts in the Strong and Active Unions motion.

The second accusation (that the passing of Pete’s motion means the NUS will “step up its campaigning” on free education and because I didn’t vote for it, I’m in favour of less campaigning) is patently nonsense. For a start, it’s simply not true that Pete’s motion is somehow hyper-radical; it resolves to “launch an active campaign in line with [NUS’s existing] policy”, and points out that this campaign should “seek to win the argument on how the government should progressively fund the expansion of higher education.” It’s hardly The April Theses.

Julian’s motion wasn’t stirring stuff either, but where Pete’s motion simply said that the education campaign should “seek to win the argument on how the government should fund…higher education”, Julian’s actually set at least some of those arguments out. It made it clear that we in favour of a complete reorganisation of education, both in terms of how it’s funded and how it’s controlled.

Finally, anyone who’s been following the respective activities of ENS (my faction) and SBL (Pete’s faction) this year should be in no doubt as to who’s in favour of a more radical campaign for free education. One example; ENS’s launch event on 3rd September hosted rank-and-file labour movement activists from NATFHE and other unions who are on the frontline of the struggle against privatisation on our campuses. SBL’s conference (mysteriously called at the last minute on the same weekend) hosted Kat Fletcher. Nuff said.

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