The NUS is so obsessed with its own PR that it has forgotten to represent you

The National Union of Students hasn’t done anything meaningful for you in years


A campaign to disaffiliate the Guild from the NUS has recently been launched in Exeter, and a member of the Yes team has a thing or two to say about it.

Oh dear, it goes from bad to worse for the NUS.

The Guild and the Pro-NUS Campaign have blocked the NUS President Toni Pearce from speaking at a Debating Society event. That’s right; they’ve blocked the very woman that is supposed to lead us.

Even the pro-NUS campaign is embarrassed by the organisation, so embarrassed by its President that they prevented her from coming down to defend the NUS.

The NUS debate is finally up and running and is likely to irritate you for about a month. Both sides are gathering momentum and we are just four weeks from the most important vote of your time as a student – a referendum of Exeter’s membership with the NUS.

Students have switched from talking about the disgusting stench of sweaty feet in Arena to debating the pros and cons of the NUS – albeit mainly cons.

Cons like refusing to condemn the most abhorrent and brutal terrorist organisation we have seen in the twenty-first century.

The NUS may be the only organisation in existence that, judging from its voting record, thinks Nestlé is a greater evil than Islamic State.

Students talk no more about how morbidly obese that cat in Birks Grange is or how pissed they are that the Ram burger and pint deal is up to £5.50.

Instead we discuss how irrelevant the organisation that is supposed to represent us is and scratch our heads asking ourselves why on earth the NUS has established its own foreign policy- condemning Israel without fearing labels of anti-Semitism but fails to condemn ISIS for fears of being called Islamaphobic.

It is so obsessed with its own PR that it has forgotten to represent you.

DebSoc announced that it will be hosting an NUS debate on Thursday 27th November at 7pm (forgive me for the shameless plug).

Toni Pearce was supposed to speak at the event, since she is the top dog after all.

It is only fair that in a debate of such gravity, the NUS President should come and defend her indefensible institution.

But there is so little confidence in her that the people who seek to keep us in the NUS are blocking her.

If there is no confidence in her then they might as well boot her out. It is all a bit laughable and it sums up the state of the NUS at the moment.

So if even the pro-NUS side are so embarrassed of the NUS, why do they really want Exeter to stay?

The people who want to keep us in the NUS just want to play politics rather than do what’s best for Exeter students and that is precisely why they will lose the NUS Vote.

So please come to the NUS debate and see another NUS official get totally pulled apart. But sadly it will not be Toni Pearce.

More info on the #Yes campaign can be found here.