Low turnout at General Meeting

Less than one percent of the student population turned out to vote at the third Students’ Union General Meeting (GM) of this academic year.

The GM took place on Monday 6 February and just four motions were debated before the meeting was terminated after falling below quorum. It took place using special measures which enabled it to proceed regardless of the number of students in attendance. Normally regulations stipulate that one percent of the student body must be present to pass policy, which in practice amounts to 208 students. 125 students provided the quorum count on Monday, much lower than the approximately 300 who attended the 29 November meeting and the 172 at the cancelled meeting on 30 January.
No new motions were debated at the meeting, with the previous week’s policies being reintroduced.

Policies debated included the continued boycott of Bacardi in Union outlets, the defeat of a motion which would have exempted certain Fairtrade products from the Union’s ban on Nestlé goods, the passing of an amendment to the Eden Springs Boycott proposal and the passing of an emergency motion on changes to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) gender statistics.

The Supporting Fairtrade policy called for the exemption of certain Fairtrade Nestlé products, such as Kit Kats, from the Union’s ban on Nestlé commodities in Union outlets. Proponents argued that exempting Kit Kats from the ban would encourage Nestlé to make more of their products Fairtrade, and that it would be “ludicrous” to boycott Fairtrade items on ethical grounds. Opponents said that Nestlé’s poor ethical track record should preclude its products from being sold, regardless of the Fairtrade status of one of its products.

The motion failed with 88 votes against and 33 in favour.

Jasper Pearce, a third-year Union Councillor, opposed the proposal. He said: “It was a motion which sought to improve practically nothing, but would weaken all boycotts that the Union holds against unethical companies. I’m glad the motion failed.”

An amendment to the Water Without Politics policy previously passed at Union Council was also discussed. Arguments for the amendment included that it would make Jewish and Israeli students more comfortable with the policy.

The vote was the closest of the evening, with the amendment passing by a narrow margin of 47 in favour of the amendment and 44 against.

The Union’s controversial ban on Bacardi was reaffirmed, with a vote passing by 70 for and 45 against.

The emergency motion proposed that changes being implemented by HESA on gender statistics could alienate transgender and intersex students by replacing the compulsory student ‘gender’ field with ‘sex’ and removing the ‘indeterminate’ and ‘information refused’ fields. The motion called for the SU to lobby the University to ensure that the ‘sex’ field is based upon gender identity. It was passed with little deliberation.

After four motions were debated the remaining policies were referred to the next Union Council meeting, including Pound In Your Pocket, Postering on Campus, and joining the Worker Rights Consortium.