I’d like to start my NUS blogging with a definitive break from the style of my political predecessor, but, sadly, I can’t. There’s a reason Education Not for Sale blogs have read like cynical, bitter indictments of student politics – because that’s exactly what telling the truth about the state of our movement, with the aim of building something better, involves.

I’d never been to LGBT conference before; as an LGBT officer at York FE College I didn’t even know NUS had an LGBT campaign. I’m not sure whether that reflects the difficulty we faced in running a functioning LGBT group, or the shortcomings of the campaign’s approach to FE students.

LGBT organising in FE is always hard; with most students still dependent on their parents, and with all the pressures on their behaviour and reluctance to come out that entails, LGBT officers in FE can find their campaigning role subsumed under heaps of welfare work they barely feel qualified to undertake. We already know the precarious financial situation FE students find themselves in – no access to loans, a pittance of a grant for those who can jump through the right hoops and low-paid, often casual, work that disrupts fulltime study. For LGBT students there is the added pressure of keeping our sexuality quiet; the sad reality is that to be out and proud often means having support from your family withdrawn. Supporting yourself through a fulltime FE course is almost impossible – it’s no wonder students feel like their only option is to hide their sexuality.

And this isn’t just an FE issue; HE LGBT students are under equal pressure from the means-testing system that ties them to their parents well beyond the age of majority. Come out as LGB or T to your parents and they refuse to support you? Tough luck – regardless of how skint you are, if your parents earn over a certain amount you’re not entitled to a grant to continue studying. I went to conference confident that the LGBT campaign would continue to support the policy of living grants for all, despite Labour Students’ smashing of our free education policy at National Conference. After all, faced with the evidence all around us of how people slip through the means-testing net and struggle to complete their course solely because of their sexuality, we couldn’t not.

I was wrong, and in the closing minutes of LGBT summer conference, we shamefully passed a policy in favour of “targeted grants” for HE students - the nice rebranded way to say means-testing. It was a reasonably close call, made all the more confusing for first-time delegates by the convenient compositing mistake which lead to a debate on the pro-means testing motion being reversed as the anti-means-testing motion was made an amendment to it. Speakers on both sides, understandably confused by proceedings, pleaded with delegates to vote for, no against, no for the amendment, and, in a move reminiscent of National Conference where votes on this debate were recounted until Labour Students won, the voting and counting procedure verged on the anarchic.

Perhaps it’s odd to start a blog with an account of the last debate of conference; what’s odder still is that, in the year top-up fees come in and NUS’s free education policy has had chunks blown out of it by Blairites, the two motions relating to eduction funding were scheduled for the final minutes of conference in the first place. Unlike National Conference, delegates at LGBT conference get a priority ballot vote on the first day to decide the order of motions baskets; this is all very democratic and something I’d advocate we extend, but I can’t help thinking the outcome, shunting the fundamental bread-and-butter issues to Sunday, is indicative of the depoliticisation of liberation campaigns.

The agenda for the three days was further evidence of this trend; motions debates were given a tiny amount of time in relation to workshops and socialising. Whilst no one in their right mind would like to see LGBT conference turn into the gruelling 14-hour slog that is National conference, and time for workshops and fringe meetings is wholly positive, it’s bordering on the ridiculous to schedule a two-hour workshop session before the day finishes at 5pm when motions fell off the order paper due to time constraints.

The biggest controversy stemmed from a motion advocating renaming the campaign from LGBT to Queer. I’m not sure what I think about the terminology, but I’d like to have a functioning campaign before we spend so much time arguing about what it should be called. Few of the big political issues that divide our movement were discussed; I’ve mentioned HE funding, relegated to a confusing and rushed debate on Sunday, but add to that the lack of motions on international solidarity, cultural relativism and FE funding. The apparent lack of factional interest only added to the apolitical atmosphere; much like at Women’s Conference, where the small number of delegates and the dominance of Labour Students allowed them to pretend they weren’t a faction at all, the Labour candidate for Open Place LGBT officer made no mention of his factional alignment in his 8 page manifesto booklet.

Despite enjoying a factional bunfight probably rather more than your average 19 year old, the more relaxed atmosphere of LGBT conference in comparison to the scrapping and bitching of National Conference is definitely one of its better points. However, it leaves me wondering why so few factions get involved – is it the lack of a fighting campaign or the fact the current political perspectives of some don’t sit particularly well with LGBT liberation? (If people are wondering what I mean by this I’m talking about SBL’s defence of Ken Livingstone’s friendly relationships with homophobes like Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and Student Respect’s continuing sycophancy towards George “down with sodomy” Galloway).

I’m told conference was dramatically smaller than last year, with around 120 delegates at its height on Saturday. Whilst this seems like a lot considering Women’s Conference had just 60 delegates this year, LGBT conference has been considerably bigger in the past, another sign of the general decline of NUS liberation campaigns.

The LGBT campaign we need would use conferences to set the agenda for a year of real grassroots activism, not for socialising and NEC-dominated debates on semantics. The campaign we need would draw the links between the struggles of LGBT people in education with campaigning for rights at work and defending the welfare state; the problems faced by skint students, from lack of financial independence from their parents to barely getting by on the minimum wage are fundamentally linked to these issues. 16 and 17 year olds can’t claim benefits – get kicked out by your parents because of your sexuality and you’ll struggle to cope. The minimum wage is not a living wage – students have to work as many hours as they can fit round their studies just to be able to eat. The LGBT campaign cannot leave these issues to national conference.

NUS LGBT campaign has historically stood in the radical, activist tradition of the Stonewall riots, not only opposing homophobic legislation like section 28 and fighting for legal reforms, but challenging the ‘pink pound’ and gay capitalism as the answer to our oppression. There’s no shortage of active LGBT groups on campuses across the UK that are taking direct action; we need a national campaign to link up these actions and lead the fight for LGBT liberation – not one that just cosies up to Government ministers and engages in apolitical lobbying.

We need a campaign that remembers our history - its politics, its radicalism, its identification with the struggles of all the oppressed and downtrodden, internationally – and that places itself firmly in this tradition. If you agree, get in touch – sofie.buckland@nus.org.uk

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