LUU accused of election rigging after communist candidate barred over email ‘error’

Leeds University Union (LUU) has been accused of rigging its student elections after a communist candidate was unable to participate due to an “error” in her email address.

Kate Holmes, 20, a Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) candidate, told The Leeds Tab she applied to run as union and affairs officer in the LUU elections “to connect with students on things they really care about”.

The third year comparative literature student said that after applying to be on the ballot she “heard nothing” from LUU for days, despite sending a follow-up email.

She then went to the union in person, arriving on the mandatory training day to ask why she had not been invited.

Kate said: “I was met with no answer other than ‘everyone who should have been contacted has been contacted’.”

She expressed how an error in her email address “apparently made it impossible to contact [her]”.

The student continued: “Despite the fact that they had my full name, position on the Marxist Society, phone number and multiple emails from my correct email address, there was never an opportunity to appeal this or be reinstated on the ballot.”

In a video uploaded to Instagram, Kate called the decision “a scandal, an outrage and a political attack”.

She said the communist programme she runs for stands against “the marketisation of our universities”, the prioritisation of “profit over students” and the union being a “cesspit of careerists and bureaucrats”.

In another Instagram video, Kate tells students the group is campaigning outside the union “every single day until [she is] put back on the ballot”.

The RCP continued to rally outside the union in the lead-up to the election, but Kate was not put on the ballot.

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Asked about support during the rally, Kate told The Leeds Tab that she had an “overwhelmingly positive response” from students and “many very sympathetic staff members”.

She continued: “I spoke to a Bangladeshi student who was genuinely shocked at how placid and apolitical LUU was.

“She told me that the Students’ Unions in her country recently organised an insurrection that overthrew a hated dictator!”

Kate explained that the level of support did not surprise the party, citing collective anger over staff pay stagnations, longer hours, pension cuts and the cost of living.

The student said that in the last five years, applications for the university’s emergency financial hardship fund have risen by 349 per cent. For postgraduate students, the rise increases to 1,134 per cent.

“Students are also literally dying from a mental health crisis!” she added.

According to Kate, this is because of the “crisis of capitalism”, which is seeing management at all universities “preparing for vicious cuts, hundreds of redundancies and, in some cases, entire courses being axed”.

Cardiff University’s recent proposal of 400 redundancies, and proposals to discontinue its nursing degree, were examples given.

Kate continued: “Now, more than ever, students deserve more than an apolitical ‘union’ that is essentially nothing more than a club night and a Co-op.

“Students deserve better than outdated memes, dinosaur costumes or puns of the candidate’s name.”

However, Leeds students have been divided over whether they believe the elections were rigged to block Kate.

A Leeds student, Max, whose name has been changed, told The Leeds Tab he feels claims that the election was rigged to block a communist candidate are “nonsense”.

He cited “how hard students work” to devise campaign strategies and “promote themselves around uni”.

“If you can’t get your own email right, you probably shouldn’t be running for an election,” he added.

Kate told The Leeds Tab she thinks this comment demonstrates “a pompous and arrogant attitude” and “is exactly why the majority of students are either indifferent to, or have an active disdain for, student politics.”

Another student, Eleanor, told The Leeds Tab she feels there is no political representation for students in the union, and that is why there is such low engagement in elections.

She agrees with the notion of it being a “popularity contest”, and thinks there is a high likelihood the election “was rigged to ensure it stays apolitical”.

Kate alleged that election rigging is being seen at Students’ Unions across the country.

The 20-year-old cited an incident at the University of Sheffield last year when a RCP candidate had his interview cut off on student television. This happened whilst he spoke about the university’s ties with arms companies and its position on Palestine.

But Sheffield University Union has strongly denied claims of election rigging. A spokesperson said: “There is no evidence of any election rigging at Sheffield Students’ Union. Each election we’ve run has been signed off by our Returning Officers as being ‘fair and properly conducted’.

“We believe the student television incident happened on Results Night after voting had closed so could not have impacted the outcome of the elections. It was an independent live editorial decision made on the night. You can see unedited interviews with all of last year’s presidential candidates on their YouTube channel.

“Sheffield SU values freedom of speech and our policies, procedures, and processes support this. Students will see a range of ideas, opinions, and issues highlighted once again, when we publish this year’s SU Officer candidates on our website this Monday.”

Kate also claimed: “Leeds Beckett University deregistered our society for its support for Palestine. We’ve had room bookings cancelled and speakers requests denied.”

Responding to this comment, a spokesperson for Leeds Beckett’s Students’ Union said: “Leeds Beckett’s Students’ Union has never had a Revolutionary Communist Party student society.

“We have a very diverse range of student communities, all of whom are empowered to organise and connect as long as they don’t breach the SU’s code of conduct.”

Kate believes Students’ Unions feel threatened by the idea of students transforming them into a “true fighting body”.

She added: “They are scared because this is a genuinely popular idea, so they cut down anyone trying to express it. We will continue to campaign for this, and one day we will win.”

Ben Gliniecki, the national secretary of the RCP, has said in a video uploaded to Instagram: “What has happened in Leeds is election rigging,” adding that the union elections are a “joke”.

He continued: “[The elections are] a popularity contest, with memes and funny slogans, which is sickening at a time when we have this genocide taking place in Palestine.”

Ben argued that the communists put a campaign forward to push back against this and turn the Students’ Union into a “fighting body”.

As a result, Ben said the Students’ Union supposedly censored them and then lied “about why [they’re] not being allowed to run.”