In defence of Aaron Porter

“When I say Porter, you say out. Porter out. Porter out.” The words that greeted a harassed-looking Aaron Porter, the president of the National Union of Students, last month at a No Fees demonstration in Manchester. Also on the lips of protesters was a chant that turned out to be somewhat more contentious. Watching footage of the event on YouTube, it is difficult to distinguish whether the protesters were shouting “You’re a fucking Tory too” or “You’re a fucking Tory Jew”. But whether there were some anti-Semitic comments among the crowd is in truth irrelevant. He is not Jewish and if what he said last year is still true, he is not a Tory.

No, the issue here is, how radical do you have to be to survive as a leader of the NUS? Aaron Porter announced last Tuesday that he was not going to run for president again at the next national conference in April. Effectively, he is quitting after a year in the job. He can try all he likes to try to fashion this into a positive move. He told the Evening Standard: “It’s healthy for me and for the NUS to head into a new landscape with a new president.” But the truth is patently clear. Porter was routed out of his position by the radical left who saw him as a capitulator to the dismantlers of higher education.

The problem with the tuition fee protesters is that they were a very mixed bunch. That in itself is not such a bad thing. For centuries, demonstrations of dissent have had to incorporate different ideas and types of people into their movement in order to appear a large enough challenge that authorities took them seriously. People came to the march with radically different agendas, not all of which were representative of the student body at large. But just because Porter decided not to side with certain members of the student movement, it does not mean that the NUS was marginalised or made irrelevant.

Students come to university with a large variety of beliefs, not all of them anarchic or socialist. By condemning those who launched a violent attack in London or cautioning those who were thinking of occupying a university building, Porter was not distancing himself from the student population at large. He was finding the midpoint between those who wanted to knock through another window, and those who came along for a peaceful protest. There are students in the UK who agree with an increase of tuition fees. And like it or not, they are part of the student community. Yet you will not hear any of their voices heard amid the cries of “Down with Clegg”.

Those who criticise Aaron Porter for not producing substantial achievements for the student cause will do well to ask whether their methods have produced any tangible changes in government policy. Occupations, barricades and walk outs do not seem to have affected a government resolute in making substantial alterations to the way we fund higher education. They will not be swayed by the threat of industrial action by students and lecturers. With a government determined to reduce the country’s deficit, the only way forward is to engineer a compromise. Negotiators must make sure that the Lib Dems keep to their second promise: to make higher education fairer.

Aaron Porter and the NUS made significant steps to achieve just that. A substantial achievement was securing loans instead of upfront fees for part-time students. It did not derail the government’s plans, but it will make a considerable amount of difference for part-time learners. The NUS knows that there will be no return to free education. This is why a focus on a fairer alternative – the graduate tax – was both reasonable and sensible. Critics have said Porter was more of a policy-maker than a defender of his people on the streets. But what is a union if it does not try to in some way try to influence and formulate policy?

It is a sad fact that the student protesters have turned on each other and started a civil war among themselves. Having a leader resign because of eggs being chucked at him or because of quasi-racist abuse does not look good for the movement overall. The infighting means that we are unable to take on the government as it embarks on an ambitious plan of reform in universities. We should not be looking in from the outside; we should instead be part of that process. The next leader of the NUS may be a lot more radical, he or she may inspire a whole new wave of student militancy. But this will not automatically make them more representative of the student population and it will certainly not guarantee that the goal of fairer education is more successfully achieved.