Megan, Chair of the University of York Student Socialist Society, was one of the delegates to attend the NUS Conference 2013 from the University – not to mention the only-out-and-out Socialist from York, which is nice. By way of thanks for the support the Society offered her and to cope with the stresses (see below), writing this article was a way to thank the former, and deal with the latter:
Another, slightly different perspective on the events of this year’s NUS National Conference for your delectation. Read on…
As you will know from the other blogs that have made it in ahead of mine, a couple of weeks ago the NUS staged its national annual conference in Sheffield, and I was fortunate enough to be elected as one of your delegates to go and represent what you, the student body, felt the NUS should and shouldn’t be doing as regards its policy this year. I hope very much I managed, and anyone who has any questions after this about which way I voted, I am available via a number of social networking sites, or just in a pub. Any pub. With a cider.
I am going to talk about some of the motions, because not all of them have been covered, and whilst I won’t go through every single motion and amendment (they can all be found here) , there are things that need to be said. Firstly, there were a good amount of victories. There really were. Plenty of positive steps on housing – for instance in motion 603, developing an evidence base on the state of student housing and moves towards regulating letting agencies (if you’re interested, a certain left-wing politics society on campus is currently doing good work in this area, ahem). York wasn’t without its own victories, either, for instance our proposal to push for a much-needed fourth loan installment for health sciences students. I would refer you to the blog written by the lovely Bob Hughes for more detailed information on the good things that came out of this conference, as there were plenty.
However, unsurprisingly, a lot happened over the three days that not only do I find personally disagreeable, but actively detrimental. Firstly, an amendment to motion 502, specifically amendment B, which proposed correctly that gains to the movement are often made through mass student activity – general meetings, demonstrations and occupations etc. – and therefore the NUS ought to be mandated to support such actions as a useful and successful way of affecting change. I’m sorry to report that this amendment was narrowly voted down. The speaker against this amendment condemned mass student activity as ‘lazy activism’, which is a complete insult. Too often, mass activity is a last resort, fallen back on by student bodies who have tried everything they can but still feel they haven’t been heard, and are sick to death of being messed about and taken advantage of, often sacrificed for profit. There is nothing lazy about organizing hundreds or thousands of people into simultaneous action for a cause. There is nothing lazy about potentially risking arrest for attempting to make your voice heard, peacefully, and without malice. It is, however, downright disgusting to fail to support the members of your union in mass action, when mass action has recently so clearly been a sign that the presence and weight of a union like the NUS is needed more than ever.
Secondly, amendment 602c, the ‘battle plan’ to revive EMA; an issue close to my heart, as the Socialist Society here campaigned hard for its re-instatement over the last two terms and spoke on it in the York Council Chambers at their budget debate. Whilst I voted for in favour of this motion (no surprise), this was voted down, again narrowly, and quite upsettingly. EMA offered an awful lot of hope to those who struggled with stuff like making up their bus fare for the week, and massively improved things for a lot of college students who couldn’t have seen friends or had any kind of quality of life without it. I received it, and it is very unlikely I’d be writing this blog now if I hadn’t. It’s unfair to suggest that nobody should be allowed to have it because a small handful of receivers were able to exploit the system, the most common argument presented against its re-introduction. It is a noxious argument, routinely used against benefit claimants, and only enhances the sickening scrounger/striver rhetoric permeating much of modern mainstream politics. Of course EMA wasn’t perfect, but it was something, and those speaking against the amendment generally had nothing more concrete or workable to offer. As a choice between improving something or throwing it away and gambling on having nothing, conference floor voted for nothing.
It was the same story with motion 701 for internal union gender-balancing. The juiciest motion at conference, certainly the one which sparked the most debate, also got narrowly voted down, which I think came as a bit of a shock to many of the delegates on the floor at the time, but in hindsight ought not to have done. I won’t outline what it proposed, as it’s in the document, but though it split our delegation, I voted in favour. Now I’m not the biggest fan of quotas. Often people forget that they’re just the means to a wider end. But those who encouraged the floor to vote ‘No’ to 701 often fell back on the same, tired, sexist arguments. “Forcing women to stand might lower the quality of the delegates we send”. “The best people always stand for the job, and the best people will always win so it’s fair as it is”. It was as though structural inequality and internalized misogyny no longer exist, even though the fact that these demeaning and untruthful arguments are still being hauled out in 2013 indicates that, in the world of politics at least, those things continue to thrive. Whilst not being without its problems, it was a positive, progressive and concrete proposal, far more than those on the ‘No’ side had assembled, and it was, as with EMA, either that step or nothing at all. This result, to the only woman at this university to stand for a delegate position this year, is greatly disappointing.
Also, while I’m here, I am going to take the opportunity to comment on ‘the Margaret Thatcher thing’. The news of her death broke while conference was in session, and some delegates took it upon themselves to publicly celebrate it, causing a reasonably prominent backlash. As a serious, committed Lefty, it may surprise some of you to learn that I didn’t rejoice in Margaret Thatcher’s death whatsoever. Whilst her family and those close to her are understandably grieving, and should be allowed to do so in private and uninterrupted, I find it naïve to herald her death as the end of something significant, as politically, her death means nothing at all. Thatcherism is alive and well at the heart of a lot of mainstream political action, and if those who claimed to be glad that she was dead as they’d always hated her anyway were actually actively trying to undo some of her frankly toxic legacy, we might get somewhere. Going out and buying ‘Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead’ – an incredibly gendered and questionable action which, tempting though it may be, cannot be pinned solely on those on the Left, seeing as it got to number 2 in the national charts – goes no way whatsoever to making any kind of difference to the families and communities which were ravaged by her government.
In conclusion, then, it felt to me like Conference 2013 was characterised in many ways by an unwillingness to commit to anything concrete, voting out many imperfect but workable and beneficial ideas in favour of waiting for something better to come along, but offering no solutions themselves. As a result, this report has been a bit doom and gloom, but that need not be the case. I want to leave you on a high, seeing as you’ve made it this far, it’s only fair. The narrowness of the votes I’ve talked about shows that this standpoint was by no means unanimous, and many of the delegates this year seemed to find this trend increasingly frustrating – a level of frustration which was partly verbalized by one Sam Gaus, of Inanimate Carbon Rod fame. Gaus ultimately removed himself from the presidential race, as of course his campaign was never serious, but not before delivering a speech which accurately, and very wittily, debunked the current state of the student movement, with its over-reliance on surveys and research, anodyne buzzwords and its failure to support real action. While I’m quite wary of anti-politicians, who stand against everything and yet offer nothing, Gaus called attention to a lot of the rot the NUS has exacted upon its students in recent years, such as the Demo 2012 route, or the Alfie Meadows incident, claiming that ‘the Inanimate Carbon Rod will not care more about broken windows than broken skulls’. The applause his speech received was jaw-dropping. They had to turn off his microphone in the end. Gaus effectively voiced a lot of the real, exasperated anger felt by people like me, who joined the movement to make a proper difference to the lives of students and have felt themselves thwarted by meaningless legislation, biased bureaucracy and often flagrant careerism. Regrettably, the policies or the organization to commit to the point he made didn’t subsequently emerge, but the fight is still there. Some at conference were saying the student movement was dead. It isn’t. It’s got a dodgy ticker, and it’s rattling with blood-thinning pills, but there’s life in the old dog yet, I reckon.
So there it is. Get in touch if you want to know more. Sorry for waffling. Peace. X
(P.S.: Sam Gaus is now on the NUS Democratic Procedures Committee. Make of that what you will.)
Megan (original)
York Socialist Party 