The NUS isn’t fit for purpose

The NUS Conference was a shambles. It showed that our student union is more out of touch with those that it needs to represent than ever before. And so I’m left wondering: who does the NUS works for anymore?

First things first, we have the incredible irony of this Tweet.

Conveniently forgetting to mention the £40k they’ve blown on helping Labour unseat Nick Clegg, but I’m sure they have all of our best interests in mind.

Then the NUS voted to work with CAGE. Whilst it’s commendable that they work on behalf of victims of the War on Terror, CAGE has also been condemned by Amnesty International after some of its spokespeople endorsed FGM and stoning adulterers to death.

The most disgusting hypocrisy occurred over the failure of the motion to create a full time trans officer. The degree of oppression which trans people are subject to in society is horrific. It’s impossible to think of any group that deserves representation more. Trans students are going to be directly hurt as a result of Conference failing to pass this motion.

One of the reasons that it narrowly failed to pass the LGBT conference with a 2/3 majority was because people were misled into believing that the NUS couldn’t afford a trans officer. Never mind the fact that they wasted money on the #liarliar campaign and a large pay increase for senior executives.

The NUS can hardly claim that it supports free education when it then puts a price on how much it really values trans students’ welfare.

The NUS used to be good at student liberation, but this year’s Conference was a masterclass in student politicking at the expense of people’s lives. This is unlikely to improve –  a motion to democratise the NUS was sent to its senior governing body which will have no hesitation in killing it. So what’s the point of the NUS?

The liberation campaigns must be given greater freedom and autonomy so this never happens again. Oppressed groups cannot be played off against each other and told that their liberation can only come at the expense of someone else’s, especially not when at the same time NUS chiefs are claiming huge pay packets.

The NUS must either increase the length of Conference or drastically cut the amount of business that it hears aside from what the liberation groups propose. That way it can scrutinise motions properly instead of wasting time on making policy statements on whether Greece should exit the Euro (you’re a student union, not the European Central Bank).

Individual student unions are often best placed to decide what policies their members agree with. Instead, they end up voting on motions at Conference without ever having to ask what you or I think about it first. Even worse, when trans students then unanimously told the NUS that they wanted their voice to be heard in the student movement, the NUS ignored them. The NUS has consistently made statements on behalf of all of us that it doesn’t have the right to make.

After years of business as usual, I don’t think the NUS can reform itself in the way that it desperately needs to. Just this once, I hope I can be proven to be wrong.