Undemocratic and Unrepresentative: UCLU should leave the NUS

The National Union of Students is supposed to be the representative body for students nationwide, but it has become embroiled in needless conflict and has lost sight of the issues that students are truly concerned about.

Over the last year, the assault on higher education has reached fever pitch. Cuts to maintenance grants and the possibility of higher tuition fees mean that a strong national voice representing the interests of student is needed now more than ever. The NUS is not that voice. With the NUS representing us, students are the laughing stock of the country.

The NUS is failing to deal with the issues that are really effecting students

The NUS has lost all credibility it might once have had with its alienating, militant politics. It has claimed that gay men ‘don’t face oppression’ and therefore don’t deserve their own representatives. Its delegates have applauded speeches arguing that Holocaust Memorial Day shouldn’t be commemorated because it’s not inclusive enough and it has consistently used no-platforming as a tool to silence any diversity of opinion.

The NUS doesn’t represent the views of students but those of an insular organisation, dedicated to using the legitimacy offered by the 7 million students it purports to represent to pursue its own interests, rather than those of ordinary students. Critically, the NUS’s unrepresentativeness ensures that the standing of what should be the organisation leading the opposition to the government’s plans for higher education is reduced to mere irrelevance.

The NUS is insular because its delegate structure, centralising executive, and crucially lack of accountability to the student body at large, encourages our NUS representatives to seek approval from their colleagues rather than from the students they are supposed to represent.

Believe in UCL argues that the NUS is undemocratic

Every year since 2013, the NUS has voted down ‘One Member One Vote’ democratising reforms which would open up decision making to the student body at large.

The election of Malia Bouattia exemplifies how dangerous the NUS’s refusal to reform is. Such a divisive and controversial leader was elected by a majority of just 44; only 372 people in total made this choice on behalf of over 7 million students.

Without getting bogged down in claims that she is antisemitic, it is undeniable that Jewish students across the country are unnerved by her presidency: the open letter signed by 56 JSoc presidents testifies to this. Perhaps more worrying than her past statements is her reply to the letter.

Malia’s presidency highlights how unrepresentative the NUS has become.

In her response, Malia placed the onus for concern about her words on those allegedly ‘misconstruing’ what she had said on the basis of her ‘faith and political views’, rather than accepting that her past statements, intentionally or not, may have evoked unpleasant spectres for Jewish students. Malia’s faith was not mentioned once in the letter.

Malia’s subsequent manoeuvre, which was to spin a meeting between her and a representative of the Union of Jewish Students as evidence of her open-mindedness and willingness to listen to the concerns of Jewish students, was furiously denounced by the representative in question.

We say enough. It’s time UCL students were given a say on whether UCLU belongs in the NUS. Let’s stand up, and Believe in UCL.