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.

NUS leadership severs links with students

Socialist Students statement on the passing of the NUS Governance Review. I've been writing an essay for the last week so it'll be business as usual once that's finished.

Build a mass movement for free education

The NUS extraordinary conference on January 20 in Wolverhampton saw the culmination of a campaign by the NUS (National Union of Students) right wing leadership, many of whom are Labour party members, to remove democratic structures in the national student body. This is taking place at a time when students are being threatened with a big increase in tuition fees, but the priority of the NUS leadership is to destroy their own union's democracy, rather than to fight in students' interests.
In order to force through these changes, the student union bureaucracy was mobilised to ensure debate was kept to an absolute minimum. Officers against the removal of democracy were locked out of emails, whilst the NUS leadership 'accidentally' sent emails to all the delegates. Without going through annual conference, these changes have been put through by two extraordinary conferences, one called at such short notice that many delegates were not elected, the most recent in the university and college exam period.
The new NUS constitution will mean that it is virtually impossible for students to propose motions to conference that will then get discussed on conference floor, that the final say on all national campaigns is in the hands of self-selecting bureaucrats, and the obligation to elect delegates to conferences is open to removal for some students unions. NUS is now far more akin to a charity that lobbies for students interests than a trade union, a body that has the potential to carry out mass action through the involvement of its members.
As Socialist Students have pointed out many times, this process has happened above the heads of the vast majority of students. The NUS leadership has rendered itself increasingly irrelevant to students' lives by refusing to take any large-scale action for over two years, and downplaying action that has taken place in order to misrepresent the real feelings of students over issues like university fees and student debt.
But the British government is in the midst of an economic crisis, and is imposing draconian attacks on people claiming benefits; it will also seek to make big attacks on students and young people in the future in order to cover the costs of bailing out the rich bankers and the capitalist system. Already graduates are being asked to work below the minimum wage for wealthy multinationals, as part of the governments National Internship Scheme (see here). A report for the government, quietly published over the Christmas holiday period, recommends big increases in the amount universities can charge students. These attacks will provoke huge opposition and mass movements from young people and students. The NUS will not be in a position to effectively lead these struggles, with new generations of activists looking mostly elsewhere. It will be out of these struggles, and mass action, that a genuine new student movement will be built.
Socialist Students has initiated the Campaign to Defeat Fees, which has won broad support from those beyond Socialist Students ranks. It has led the way in terms of national action against fees, organising days of action over the course of the last two academic years which have involved hundreds of students in over 50 universities and colleges around the country. It has also won support from students in Bangor University in a referendum, against the arguments of the leadership of NUS. In addition to campaigning on fees and debt, Socialist Students have also organised many protests over the recent destruction in Gaza in places like Keele and Bangor, campaigned against privatisation in Sussex, Exeter and Northumbria, and much more. Socialist Students, and the Campaign to Defeat Fees, have an important role to play in building campaigns against raising the cap on university fees and in building a national fightback against attacks.
Unfortunately, there is currently no mass force amongst students that is capable of giving effective leadership to the student struggle and of starting a discussion about building a new national body with serious weight behind it. Socialist Students argues for a broad left to bring together all genuine activists to be built in the coming period.
In the absence of such a broad left the NUS will remain, in the eyes of the government, the media etc, the established voice of students for now. Many students unions view their relationship with the national body as a means of getting discounted beer and other goods, through NUSSL, rather than primarily as a political one. Large numbers of College and FE students unions, largely without the same resources for full time staff as university HE students unions, will not have been aware of the undemocratic changes to NUS. Changes in voting for NUS conference delegates will happen on a student's union-by-students union basis, and will be a gradual process. Without mass developments outside NUS, it is possible that a layer of activists could still even be attracted to the NUS, only to be sorely disappointed once reaching national events. Although extremely unlikely, it is also not impossible that the NUS could still play a role in campaigning for student rights, even organising demonstrations if it feels under pressure and is worried about losing its dominant position as 'the' voice for students. Therefore it is unlikely that these fundamental changes to the NUS will be fully felt immediately. Only as a result of mass action led by activists outside the NUS will the domination of NUS be undermined.
This will not necessarily be a lengthy process however. A march has been called through London on February 25, actively involving a modest number of students unions and campaigning student groups, including Socialist Students. This has been organised outside of the NUS structures, in opposition to the NUS leadership's inactive strategy, although supported by NUS-affiliated students unions. Socialist Students put a motion to the body that is organising this action, calling for it to take on more flesh and become the embryo of a new national campaigning centre. This is opposed by Socialist Workers Student Societies (SWSS) and the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) because of fears they will not be able to dominate it. The AWL state, in a document they distributed at a Socialist Students national council,

"We should use Sussex [Students Union] as a starting base of the new centre [to replace NUS] – Sussex could provide a fraction of its current NUS affiliation fee...
"The Open Planning Meetings for the demonstration should continue after the demonstration... but it is unlikely that they will 'morph' into a new organising centre. They are too loose to form a nucleus or a base, and an attempt to 'firm them up' would be fraught with difficulty. Separate meetings and conferences should be held to create the new body – and when Sussex constitutes it, the new organising centre should be presented to the Open Planning Meetings as a fait accompli"

Amongst student activists, Sussex has an important reputation as a campaigning students union. Activists within the union, who have been involved in organising the march on February 25, will have an important part to play in building a new body. But we do not agree that one union can substitute itself for the whole student body, much less establish a new centre and present itself as a fait accompli to other groups of students entering activity. Because of the methods of the SWP and the AWL, the march on February 25 has been organised in a nebulous manner, one that is open to undemocratic manoeuvres and does not carry as much weight as it could do. A march, even a smaller one, will be a positive step forwards, and a national body that has led this and organised this could be in a significant position. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the open planning meetings will be transformed in order to take full advantage of this. Any steps towards forming new national bodies need to be based on mass action, on a genuinely democratic approach involving new layers of activists as well as bringing together student activist groups and students unions. That may come through local students unions, but many of these bodies have also attacked internal democracy.
New bodies may also develop around and without these local structures as well.
If the loose grouping that has called the February 25 march does not take on flesh, it will be a missed opportunity. Socialist Students will strive to ensure that that does not happen, but it is clear that the end of NUS has opened up a period where there may well be a series of false starts and missed opportunities. We will attempt to ensure that we discuss the situation regularly within our ranks, whilst prioritising campaigning against attacks on students and workers conditions and rights.
We will continue to play a role in the NUS structures, and not abandon any activists that are attracted to it by false hopes, or any possibility of gaining a wider audience of students for our ideas of struggle and socialism. Whilst there is no new national body, we do not call for students unions to disaffiliate from the NUS. But as part of our campaigning, we will raise the idea of building genuinely representative bodies for students, that fight against attacks and for improvements, and endeavour to build the fight back alongside students with the strategy of building mass movements.

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!

Socialism 2008 – Review – Socialism and Left Unity by Peter Taaffe (2008)

Whilst this isn’t really a session at Socialism 2008, this book was launched there and is a critique of the ideas and methods of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). It does take up some of the points that were debated in the session at Socialism 2008 on Building a Revolutionary Party (of which there is a video of on the Socialist Party website - http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/6614).

The book begins with some general points about why the Socialist Party (SP) thinks debates on the methods and ideas of organisations are important for serious attempts at left unity. The first section proper discusses the origins of the SWP and the Socialist Party and their ideas in relation to Stalinism – particularly criticising their idea of the USSR and other states as being state capitalism and the problems with this definition. The next chapter begins with focussing on how these ideas led to problems after the collapse of Stalinism in the early 1990’s and their idea of this decade being “the 1930’s in slow motion”.

It then moves on to discuss the approach of the SWP towards the anti-capitalist movement – in particular their use of the slogan – another world is possible - compared to the SPs – a socialist world is possible. It also takes up Trotsky’s transitional programme, what the SP believes to be the misapplication of the idea of transitional demands.

Next up is the attitude of the SWP to the rest of the left – its role in relation to the Socialist Alliances and also the role of its sister organisation in Germany. To this the approach of the SP is contrasted with that of the SWP, particularly how the SP argued for a federal approach in that organisation with the SWPs ‘rule or ruin’ approach. It then deals with the RESPECT saga too. This area is then dealt with again later in the book in a section entitled “United Front Today and the Left in Germany”.

The book then goes discusses a few incidents in the trade unions in the 90’s before taking up disagreements in the PCS and NUT between the SP and the SWP. The section after this discusses the SWP’s anti-fascism work – after discussing the successes of the Anti-Nazi League – it critiques what the SP believes were some of its failures – it’s “Don’t vote Nazi” slogan which leaves open the possibility of voting for other capitalist parties and the lack of democracy within that organisation and then deals with the role of Unite Against Fascism in recent years.

The final section deals with the internal regime of the SWP, in particular the use of top-down bureaucratic methods when dealing with serious disagreements inside the organisation giving examples of the expulsion of their US sister organisation and in relation to break up of RESPECT and then contrasts this with the SP and the CWI.

Although the book is a critique of the SWP and many of the arguments may be familiar to people already, the book touches on many other points which are of interest to anyone on the left in terms of history, theory and various movements. The debate on revolutionary ideas, organisation and methods will become increasingly important and this book is worth reading for anyone who agrees with the necessity of this, especially current members of the SWP.

Review – What’s Going On? By Mark Steel (2008)

I wrote this review quite a while back, but given that Mark Steel was a speaker at the sunday rally at Socialism 2008 and some of the points he raised were also raised in this book it think it is apt to publish it now.

Mark Steel’s latest book is a tale of his very own personnel mid-life crisis. As his personal life breaks down seeing him sleeping on the couch at home, he also goes through a political divorce with the organisation he’s belonged to since he was a teenager, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
But both these personal episodes illustrate the bigger issue that Steel discusses throughout the book, the question of how we can take the anger that exists at the capitalist system and do something about it.
On of the main things Steel disputes throughout the book is the notion that the working class no longer exists. Although the large factories of traditional industrial working class are slowly being transferred abroad, Steel notes how layers such as civil servants and teachers now form parts of the working class. More importantly he notes how the supermarkets and other large retail stores have in effect become the factories of the 21st century with customers being the object the workforce there are processing – Steel picks out a good comparison of how in Subway customers order their sandwiches in a manner that is effectively a conveyer belt system.
Steel notes how events such as the movement against the Iraq war have drawn large numbers of people into opposition to the government , yet the potential for building a new party to represent workers has been squandered on several occasions, particularly by the leadership of the SWP.
Steel focuses on the ruins of Respect, noting how the SWP leadership were willing to overlook various factors ie. George Galloway’s lack of accountability to Respect etc. (of which the Socialist Party has been critical of Respect), but for George Galloway to issues a document mildly criticising John Rees, the National Secretary of Respect (and SWP Central Committee member) – this was a step too far.
The rest is history as they say. Steel gives plenty of examples of the control-freakery of the SWP leadership in the downfall of Respect. But given he also cites examples prior to this, including the inflation of membership numbers, the reader wonders why it took him so long to break politically from such people.
The book however, is well worth the read. Steel writes in a manner that is easy to understand and in a very humourous manner (as is to be expected being a comedian), but he also helps even those very politically aware understand things in new and insightful ways at the same time.

Something's Missing?

I had to comment on this commentary by Rob Sewell of Socialist Appeal on the Uk local election results. It's not something I normally do, but it's quite misleading. The original article is here.

I wouldn't expect anything else of Socialist Appeal than to use the not too fantastic results of the left (particularly SWP/Left List) in the local elections to say there is no possibility of building anything outside of Labour. But you would thought they would tell the whole story.

The paragraph that offends me most is as follows

Another sect, the so-called Socialist Party, fielded about 15 candidates nationally in the local elections. They all sank without trace - except one. And this was the exception to the rule. This was Dave Nellist, the ex-Labour MP of Coventry SE, who retained his seat in St Michael’s ward with 1,643 votes. This was clearly a personal vote as the other two SP candidates managed to scrape a measly 142 votes (to come bottom of the poll of seven candidates) and 135 votes (to come bottom of the poll out of six). Other results included Alec Thraves in Castle ward, Swansea, who scored 172 votes, Pete Bradley in Nuneaton who polled 88, while in Stoke on Trent the SP candidate got 130 votes. In London, they fared no better, where they stood Chris Flood for the London Authority. He managed to come bottom of the poll (10th out of 10 candidates), with 1,587 votes (out of 146,841 votes caste) in Greenwich and Lewisham. This was even less than the votes cast for the fossilised sect of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which polled 1,588 votes in Lambeth and Southwark!

The results picked are selective - (this is also the case with some of the SWP/Left List candidates who polled fairly well in a few areas outside London where they have been campaigning for several years) But it misses out the four best results after Dave Nellist - which are

18% (377) Pete Glover in Sefton
936 Ian Slattery in Huddersfield (standing for Save Huddersfield NHS)
12% (295) Lyne Worthington in Bagueley, Manchester
12.3% (352) Mick Griffiths in Wakefield

now, these aren't victories but they are better than the results reported by Socialist Appeal, and show that we are building bases of support in several areas around the country.

but also there is the question of why we stand in elections. according to Socialist Appeal we should be standing to win hundreds of seats by the sounds of it (okay maybe I am exaggerating a bit). we know we are only small and the task of building a much bigger organisation remains.

for us however, standing in elections is part of the process of building our support - most of the time we don't expect to win (although it's nice if we do), it's more about increasing our share of the vote, building support for socialist ideas and building the party.

Beating the BNP

Last week I indavertently ended up in a SWP public meeting/forum. They had the usual discussionn etc. (which i may comment upon at some point), but what interested me was a little discussion they had at the end about the BNP standing in a local by-election in Calderdale. The BNP won a by-election in the Illingworth & Mixenden ward in 2003, and since then now have two councillors in calderdale (down from 3 at one point). The by-election is interestingly enough in the Illingworth & Mixenden ward, where a sitting Labour councillor has died. Thus the SWP are mobilising against the BNP in this election.
But what are the SWP in Huddersfield & Calderdale doing to stop the BNP, they're out leafletting to get people to not vote BNP. And who are these voters supposed to vote for instead, the Tories, Liberals or Labour, all of whom support the cuts that are allowing the BNP to gain support? What is needed is a new worker's party that can oppose these cuts and help lead the fight against them, the SWP claim RESPECT is this, but they are not standing a candidate or even putting out propaganda for people to join RESPECT (this is to the best of my knowledge). From what I've seen, the SWP seem to have a policy that says that Labour is reclaimable, as can be seen by their failure to call fro the trade unions to disaffiliate from a Labour party that is attacking them and call for a new party (or even join RESPECT). Their approach is best summed up as a stages approach, first we stop the BNP getting elected, and then we do something to support the struggles of working people.
Unfortunately, the SP in Halifax do not have a large amount of members and when discussing whether we could put out propaganda for the formation of a new workers party (and asking people to join the CNWP) we found that due to our conference being this weekend we didn't have enough comrades left to do so (this would have been in addition to the stall we'd already arranged in Huddersfield). It is something we want to do, given the resources and the mobility to do so.
Where we stood last year in Huddersfield we did cut across the BNP vote significantly (their support was minimal in the ward we stood in), and Dr Jackie Grunsell has shown herself as a class fighter, supporting the Unique Care strike, the campaign against Academies, and against nurseries closures and other issues in Kirklees. Hopefully we can build upon this work, and stop the BNP reclaiming the area that was once the 'jewek in their crown'.