1st November 2007

NUS National Secretary Stephen Brown shows the right wing are running scared by resorting to personal attacks on his blog

Yes, I have read the governance review, and no, acting as a revolutionary socialist on the NEC doesn’t mean I’m lazy – it just means I don’t spend my time doing the kind of “work” the leadership do.

If anyone really thinks organising two large Feminist Fightback conferences, the first ever occupation against top-up fees, a speaker tour on the Oaxaca student and worker uprising, a torch-lit march for abortion rights, a night with film and speakers on women's struggles in Iraq and Iran, a left-wing ‘tax the rich’ contingent on the NUS demo, three successful activist gatherings, a rank-and-file activist group in Cambridge, a campaign for NUS democracy, and support for women’s groups on various campuses across the country, alongside reporting on the secretive machinations of NUS NEC and producing briefings on the FE Bill sell-out, financial mismanagement, ultra-vires, free education and the Governance green paper is lazy, I think they’re a cynical bureaucrat. Particularly if they’re someone whose NUS record is less than laudable both politically and in terms of activity; when was the last time any of the NUS right-wing actually organised anything more impressive than a few glossy posters?

His claim that I haven’t read the review is bizarre – sure, I didn’t have time to read the entire document before the first NEC meeting to discuss it (because some of us aren’t chained to expensive bits of wi-fi technology all day, we’re actually doing stuff), but would I really be so stupid as to make claims about a document I hadn’t read, and organise a campaign around them? I voted against the entire review, even some vaguely redeemable bits, on principle – it would be a pretty ridiculous principle that lead me to not bother to read it first. It’s just a smear – ignore him.

I’m going to deal with a few of Stephen’s other fabrications – he starts by claiming the review is in fact democratic, as National Conference voted it through and NEC “approved” the process. I’m not sure some people really understand what democracy actually means – I agree the decision to have a review was democratically passed through conference, but that doesn’t mean the way the review was carried out was open, democratic or anything other than a right-wing stitch-up. Let’s review the facts again;

-The review board was appointed by the National President and had no ordinary students on it

-The review board published no minutes and meetings weren’t open

-The board took “submissions” but with no democratic process for including majority opinions into the review. They had no obligation not to just bin stuff they didn’t like.

Stephen can complain about the ENS “members” not being elected to any position in their unions all he wants (although this is a) irrelevant, b) not true and c) an indication of his contempt for rank-and-file activists), but the truth is the review wasn’t democratic, wide-ranging or accessible to ordinary students.

Next he goes on to say: "Firstly, it seems more than a little disingenuous for the hard left to argue that an Extraordinary Conference in the first term is inaccessible to 'ordinary students' and then in the second breath call for a first term National Demo."

This is ridiculous. Firstly, we’re for a regular, annual, first-term National Demo – not only can ordinary students just come to a demo (rather than facing bureaucratic hurdles like they do in terms of being delegated to Extraordinary Conference, with no open elections required), but a regular, well-publicised demonstration each year sets a trend that educates first-year students about the need for activism for free education. The two events are hardly comparable.

Delegate entitlement might be, as Stephen says, the same as for Annual Conference, but when was the last time we saw a fully attended Extraordinary Conference? The last two, in 2004 had only three hundred or so delegates. That’s between half and one third the size of ordinary conference. And how does he attempt to address the democratic deficit (a term the right-wing seem to like, or pretend to) evident in the fact that few of those delegates will be the democratically elected representatives of the students on their campuses, chosen to go because of their stance on this issue?

Stephen: "...our obligation is to ensure that in NUS’ most important year we can concentrate on fighting the lifting of the cap, not trying to implement a new structure – that’s what would be best for the 'rank and file'."

This is a massively disingenuous excuse for pushing the proposals through before anyone can object. The latest 'strategy' for fighting the raising of the cap includes little action at all on the part of the NUS leadership (surprise surprise) – it’s all lobby lobby lobby until 2009 where they expect to pull a large demo out of their hats despite cancelling previous ones (this year, as in the year top-up fees were brought in with five-vote majority, NUS didn't have a demo). We can spend both the proper amount of time debating these proposals AND organise a militant campaign for free education, including the immediate issue of fighting unlimited fees. The NUS rightwing don’t want to do either.

Stephen: "The option here is quite simple – keep a system where student’s only chance to input into the work of NUS is conference OR keep conference, create Zonal events halfway through the year."

This is laughable – Zone events where it’s one union, one delegate, with no voting and the Zonal committee controlling what they think is consensus and what isn’t? If anyone can tell me how that’s going to include more students, I’d be pretty interested to hear it.

Interestingly, this is pretty much exactly what Gordon Brown and his cronies said when they recently abolished motions at Labour Party Conference – lots of demagogy about the need to increase democracy whilst cutting it behind everyone’s backs. Funny that…

As usual, the knives are out in the most unpleasant and personal way for anyone who has the temerity to disagree with the NUS leadership.

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/sofiebuckland/274896.aspx