There are many reasons why I love politics – student politics, local community politics and national politics, not least because of the opportunities to express and engage with political ideas and concepts.

However, the recent revelations about the Lib Dems, Kennedy and Hughes in particular, have reminded me about the worst aspects of politics, the reason why so many people distrust and dislike those of us who are political, whether in NUS or in Westminster.

There’s a dirty side to politics, full of smear and spin and stabbings of the in-the-back variety.

But it’s not just the likes of Kennedy and Hughes who have been briefed against so publicly in the media. I’d imagine that every MP has, at some point in their career, experienced the whispers in the corridors of Westminster, whispers from below and above.

And it’s not just reserved for Members of Parliament.

Members of the NUS NEC are also exposed to the same treatment – something I’ve experienced first-hand this year. Leaflets are distributed, full of lies and dirty smears. Online messageboards, websites and blogs are used to discredit you, to undermine your work and beliefs, to portray you as something you’re not.

I imagine it’s far worse if you are standing for election at national conference, but even so I have endured far more than my fair share, and I tell you now, I’m sick of it. And I mean “sick”, by the way. I’ve lost count of the number of sleepless nights I’ve experienced this year - waking up with a start, that heavy feeling in your stomach, watching the clock count the hours away as you lie there trying to work out what you’ve ever done to make someone hate you so much that they’re willing to sacrifice your well-being just to make a political point that isn’t even remotely connected to the truth. Or maybe they don’t hate you. Maybe they just don’t give a damn. Small wonder they don’t organise in the SWD campaign. They’d never be able to reconcile the effects of their “tactics” with the principles of the campaign!

At first, you retaliate, you reply with your side of the argument, point out the errors in the statement and ask for it to be amended. But do that and you’re told that if you don’t want to be criticised, don’t stand for election. I guess that makes sense in a really twisted way. But it only makes sense if you suspend reality. Because most of the shit that’s been put out against me is just that – steaming bullshit. Lies. False. Not true. And the rest is a different political perspective (i.e. that in campaigning against the gender pay gap, we’re only campaigning for middle class women…). So when they say that anyone on the NEC is fair game, what they really mean is that anyone who stands for election can expect to be the subject of lies and smears – and if you’re not prepared to put up with it, don’t stand for election.

When I first got involved in NUS, I thought that policy debates and elections were fought on the issues – positive statements about beliefs and values. But I now know that I was mistaken. Every year, I think that things will change. But they never seem to. And that is our fatal flaw. As long as factions engage in dirty politics, then that is how factions will be seen, thereby making it easier for those who oppose the role of factions in NUS to get rid of us. You don’t win debates by making it easier for our opponents to win. NUS needs factions, it needs the injection of politics and values that factions bring, not just those who are elected, but the delegates who attend conference. With 5.2 million members, NUS needs to be as diverse as its membership, and that includes the representation of our members who do have politics. Let’s not make it easier to eradicate us by playing into their hands.

In other words, grow up and pack it in. It’s sad, pathetic and demeans you and everything you stand for.

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