3 Days of Purgatory: NUS Conference 2009

Whilst radicalism in Britain was seeing a revival around the G20 protests, some poor sods on the left drew the short straw and had to make the annual trek up to Blackpool for the NUS Annual Conference.


However, the conference started off with a pleasant surprise for me – it only took us 3 hours from Bangor to get there - it usually takes me that long to get to Manchester if I’m lucky!
The conference reflected the situation that NUS finds itself in at present – the vast majority of the motions were fairly pointless and without substance. Most of the motions with any substance had been proposed by groups and students unions on the left which tried to bring into conference the voice of the energetic movements that had developed. Unsuprisingly, amendments of free education, supporting the gaza occupations, recognising the success of those occupations etc. all got voted down. The only motion that did get passed was an amendment by Sussex against Ultra-vires that saw Wes Streeting speak for it (we believe he was deliberately baiting the Organised Independents).
Conference also featured some of the worst chairing I’ve ever seen with some NEC members blatantly deciding to ignore delegates wishes. We also saw a motion of censure being passed against Hind Hassan and Rob Owen.

The left was noticeably weaker than the last time I had gone to NUS conference. Another Education is Possible (SWP) were a lot smaller than the last time I’d seen them they maybe around 40 delegates. Education Not For Sale were also smaller – with around 10-12 delegates. Our delegation was very small – however, we’d have been around the same size as ENS if we hadn’t sent people down to the G20 protests instead of NUS Conference – our delegation of 5 was holding the ‘fort’.

Another presence at the conference was Communist Students – but it wasn’t Communist Students that’s associated with the CPGB – instead it was the CPB attempting to reclaim the name. Whilst they didn’t have any delegates they did run a stall and put on a fringe meeting which they asked us to speak at about the No2EU campaign. Indeed they were very friendly to us through the whole conference – allowing us to put copies of my election leaflet on their stall.

The CPB fringe meeting was small but very interesting – due to the smallness of it I was able to quiz the guest speaker, a consul from the Venezuelan Ambassy, about crime and criminal justice in Venezuela (post coming shortly!). We also had a brief discussion on how the No2EU election campaign was developing. I also went to two fringe meeting organised by the SWP – the first was a debate between Rob Owen and Wes Streeting which went over most of the same old ground. The second was the SWSS fringe on ‘How Can Palestine Be Free?’ There were two speakers – a SWSS student who talked about Zionism – unfortunately most of his contribution was stuff to do with the guy who came up with it rather than an actual analysis of its development and influence today. The second contribution was that of Michael Lavalatte who spoke about how we can solve the conflict there – a contribution which was good in some ways – stressing the need for socialism and opposing the Hamas tactic of firing rockets into Israel – but was still vague. Unlike the SWP fringe I went to three years ago, this time they allowed a handful of contributions from the floor (although they ignored Dan Randall of ENS who had his hand up first) and another Socialist Students member came into the discussion pointing out the inverse relation of the strength of Zionist ideas to the strength of the working class in relation to Russia and Germany before commenting further on the working class being the force for socialist change in the Middle East, including in Israel. The SWP seemed to have clearly prepared for us to come in on this point as they began attacking the very idea that the Israeli working class could be a force for change saying that the official labour movement is tied to Zionism and excludes Arabs (but that doesn’t stop Israeli workers organising outside that, like we are doing with NUS). The SWSS speaker then also started replying to stuff we’d never said – one memorable point he tried to make was that the Palestinian working class (which we hadn’t mentioned) is very small – he said around 20% of the population (but the working class were only 5% of the population when the Bolsheviks took power in Russia!)

For me, the struggles of students mostly lay outside that conference. But compared to the expected weakness of our intervention we made a good intervention into the conference, making several good speeches (including mine for the block of 15 – I didn’t get elected by the way). We also did a mildly successful stall in Blackpool on the Wednesday lunchtime. But I guess the best moment for the left in the conference was when Dan Randall (ENS) got elected onto the new trustee board with the highest number of first preference votes running on a anti-trustee board platform. (the appointees to the board include the Sheffield Uni vice-chancellor who threatened his own student with court action and a director of Lloyds TSB bank – which says it all about the board). James Haywood (AEP) was elected to the block of 15 and Dan Swain (AEP) was elected to the democratic procedures committee.

National Free Education Demo Planning Meeting Report

On Sunday I was in Manchester for the second Open Planning meeting for this demo (provisionally the 25th February in London). I reckon there were between 40-45 people in the meeting, with quite a few from ENS, about 7 from Socialist Students, 5 or so SWP and then some people from Manchester's Reclaim the Uni (RTU) and some other. I of course was there delegated by Bangor Socialist Students Society.

Before I discuss the actual content, I want to talk a little about the way the meeting was run. RTU decided they wanted the meeting to use concensus decision making and after a short debate and vote it was decided to use it. I found it incredibly confusing as there were various different gestures and stuff we had to do and i found you couldn't tell if a decision had been made or not. Also, i found it potentially undemocratic as the facilitators have an awful lot of power to shape discussions and put forward their own proposals (or accept others without real debate such as changing the order of the agenda). As it was I felt the system began to break down towards the end under the size of the meeting and i think some people's growing frustrations with it.

The meeting started off with the organisation of the demo itself. I have to say i thought it was very clear that the SWP/Another Education is Possible(AEP) were very clear about their own plans for what they want to happen - they want their own rally at the end of the demo. (although they were less blunt than their leaflet in the meeting)
The meeting agreed a short rally before we set off (with speakers from various groups - my impression was at a minimum one person from AEP, one from ENS and one from Socialist Students)
There were suggestions of organising Direct Action heavily pushed by RTU. Personally I think direct action has its place as part of a wider, mass struggle as a tactic - not a stunt or an end in itself. What seemed to be discussed was a sort of conspiratorial thing with a keyword and the reason to do it would be to get lots of press. I think however, this would be press for the stunt and not the mass movement and would detract from it. There was also later on talk about 'creating a confrontation' as a way of 'energising' the movement (speakers from ENS and SWP suggested this). I think such talk is a little childish. Whilst we ought to be aware that the police have attacked demos in the past and could attack this one, we shouldn't try and create a provocation. That said we should organise proper stewarding to defend ourselves (this wasn't discussed - i think it was postponed to the next meeting)
Finally the preferred route of the march was discussed from Malet Street to Parliament Square which needed negotiating withe the police (to get a SOCPA permit etc.) and a committee was elected to do that.

The next thing discused was how to mobilise for the demo. There seemed to be an assumption that SU's who have declared their support for the demo will actively mobilise for it - however, from talking to some people at those Uni's this won't be the case with quite a few of them - as ever it will probably be up to the activists to mobilise for it (i guess thats why we're called activitis though!)
There was some discussion about publicity - most groups will produce their own leaflets, but there will be a very basic centrally produced leaflet with the just the three main demands (not to marketisation of education, no to fees, living grants for all students - perhaps the wording is slightly off but you get the gist) and the details of the demo, mostly for the use of any smaller groups who want to use it locally and add to it.
There was also some discussion of building for it outside of universities (i think everyone there was a university student (or left student group organiser)). There was mentioned the support the demo had received from the UK Youth Parliament. Then came the contentious bit.
EMA!
During the discussion Matt Dobson raised how the fact that many FE students hadn't been paid EMA on time was a source of much anger their and would be something that FE students would be more than willing to campaign on. I backed this up with my experience in Bangor (see september posts on this blog) and suggested it be added to the demo's aims/slogans. This was opposed both by ENS and SWP. Their argument was that by adding it it would mean potentially adding an avalanche of other demands reagrding sections of students. However, in countering that I argued that EMA affects a huge proportion of all FE students and thus cannot be compared to International Students, Postgraduate Students, Part-Time Students etc. (which aren't small groups either). Also they said that it was covered under the slogan of a living grant (which is technically true, but saying EMA makes it a lot clearer to FE students I have found) Needless to say, that addition was blocked. I think that was a big mistake and I actually wish I'd been a bit sharper and forceful on this question as I think it is something that could have mobilised more FE students to join in the demo and link the questions of FE and HE funding and living costs together. (especially because it would show up NUS a bit that we do care about FE students, seeing how they always bang on about FE students).

And on that note the meeting, sort of ended, but actually carried on for another five minutes discussing the NUS extraordinary conference in January. Points were made about how the timing of it will exclude ordinary students who will be doing exams, and also how the turnout could probably be lower than the last one. What response we should have to it was discussed briefly but was still open at the end, so wait and see.

And then I had a 2 1/2 hour journey back to Bangor turn into a 5 hour one. Thanks privatised railway network!