NUS seize control of UBU elections

• Student election results must now be approved by the NUS
• Elected candidates who do not get NUS approval can be barred from office
• UBU referendum on our membership with NUS has now been cancelled

Control of our student elections has just been handed to the bastion of fairness and democracy that is the NUS, and UBU did nothing to prevent it.

UBU in Mordor

The NUS has been appointed as returning officer for this year’s elections, giving it all kinds of powers in the case of any dispute between candidates. Emma Powell, an NUS office, will now be able to monitor all local elections and all candidates will have to be ‘approved’ centrally.

One Bristol University student complained: “it’s almost like asking the European Parliament to approve our MPs”.

The manner of this appointment was dubious to say the least. Several members of the Democracy and Standards Committee (DSC) – which President Griffiths sits on (despite openly endorsing Imogen Palmer’s campaign) – queried it but it was pushed through regardless.

I resigned from the DSC, partly in disgust, as the NUS is a redundant body with no interest in either democracy or standards.

The NUS’s inner workings are about as transparent as a meter of lead but of more concern to me is their ability to be impartial (or lack thereof).

Though I’m not standing for election, I can just about imagine the farce of the NUS making decisions on my campaign. It does nothing for real students and is, in my opinion, merely a crèche for aspiring Labour politicos.

If I was running in the elections, can anybody seriously imagine me getting a fair hearing from an NUS employee when I have called for their abolition? I have not been satisfied by any of Rob’s management-speak guarantees that the NUS will act in any ways other than in the interest of the NUS.

The problem with having the NUS as returning officer does not end there. UBU’s new by-laws force them to give us a referendum on our membership of this bastion of anti-democratic inaction.

UBU now refuses to do this as it would mean the NUS would be making decisions on a campaign to leave the NUS.

Rob sees this as a problem with an NUS referendum and not a problem with the NUS’ involvement in our elections.

I am definitely in a minority with my obsession for transparency in every aspect of UBU’s democracy but their contempt for the student body is becoming obvious to everybody and not just wonks and weirdos like me.

Our National Student Survey scores will no doubt be abysmal again. Our dear leader has an ingenious plan to fix this. What, you might ask, is this plan? Perhaps he has a scheme to improve what must be one of the only student bars that loses vast sums of money (insert joke about organising piss-ups in breweries here)?

Rob thinks the problem with the Union isn’t with services – it’s with marketing

Perhaps more support for student societies, increasing access to society funds, minibuses to take sports teams to away matches, or any number of things we ask for?

No. The thing we really need to do to fix UBU is spend more on marketing – to convince us proles that UBU are doing a great job really.

With that, Rob summed up a lot of what is wrong with UBU – and the NUS. They are interested in student politics, not students.