Image: The Brighton Centre/ Wikimedia Commons

NUS votes against motion supporting political neutrality

The NUS has voted against a motion that would require them to be “impartial and inclusive” to students of all political backgrounds, on the first day of the 2017 NUS National Conference in Brighton. They also voted to allow student representatives to publicly endorse certain political parties.

At the conference, delegates from Students’ Unions across the country voted on a number of policies focused on student welfare – including Warwick delegates Alexandra Bevis, Hope Worsdale, Chloe Wynne, Dapo Adaramewa, Uma Kotwal, and Chairman Rose.

The vote on the motion has already been met with some negative responses, including from second-year PAIS student and President of Warwick Politics Society Henry Riley, who tweeted: “Is this actually serious?”

The motion itself, submitted by Huddersfield Student’s Union, claims that “The NUS is run by left-wing officers who publicly endorse parties such as Labour” and that “The endorsement of specific parties excludes many members, making NUS unrepresentative.” The motion therefore urges, as one of its three clauses, that “NUS should actively follow article 6 of the Articles of Association and “be independent of any party-political organisation” rather than stating this as merely De Facto.”

However, the motion failed to pass.

The NUS and its outgoing president Malia Bouattia have previously received criticism for their controversial political stance, including for the official condemnation of UKIP and Israel in 2014. Bouattia has also received considerable criticism for allegations of anti-semitism.

Since 2016, many universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Newcastle and others held referendums on leaving the NUS, with Lincoln, Newcastle, Hull and Loughborough voting to disaffiliate themselves.

 

Comments (1)

  • oh bore off, su’s and the nus should never represent all political views because that would mean endorsing the right who HATE students! that’s just a fact! the nus is one of the last remaining vestiges of true effective leftism in the country, we should be embracing that not catering to tory bigots who would rather see us pay MORE to attend university and also want to CRIPPLE the nhs. i for one welcome that that this motion was blocked and i would be in favour of a motion to ban anyone who is right wing from ever attending the nus because we are clearly not an organisation who hold similar values to them, because you know we actually care about real students and their welfare not just privatisation and money. most students are left wing anyway so the nus should reflect this. also the nus should be political, its a political union ffs, we should be endorsing jeremy and the REAL labour party and also the greens not these red tories who want to destroy the labour party from the inside for personal profits! good on the nus, standing up for what is right.

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