Unrepresentative. Cliquey. Irrelevant. These are just a few of the many, many accusations levelled at student politics. These all have varying degrees of justification, but perhaps the most stinging attack that I’ve heard is that YUSU elections are undemocratic. This isn’t a view which stands to reason – if we look at the turnout at the recent election, York peaked at over 40%, which is one of the highest student union turnouts in the country. For all the issues with YUSU, it does give us students a range of candidates and a vote. Anyone can stand, and as long as you are a student represented by YUSU, you can vote.
It is with this mindset that I tend to approach student politics. However, recently, I happened upon an article from a certain online, student publication that challenged these views. The piece was essentially a hatchet job – an attack upon a candidate who later was to become new NUS president. Now, what struck me most wasn’t who was running in the race. It was the fact that I had no idea that such a race was even taking place.
This took me somewhat by surprise. As a student coming from a media background, I like to think of myself as rather well connected to student politics – an ear to the ground, if you will. That I had no inkling of any kind of race taking place seemed strange.
Is this intentional? Possibly. After all, your average student gets no vote in who leads the NUS nationwide. What it is, though, is totally and utterly absurd. Our votes for this position – for the role that will act as the face of students next year – don’t come from us. They come from NUS delegates who we vote for separately, so your average student is a level removed from this enfranchisement. The majority of our representatives campaigned against this at the recent NUS conference, and have done so in the two and half years since we last chose to remain in the organisation. However, every year our motions have been delayed and filibustered, and this year it was shot down to the cheers of delegates. This isn’t “undemocratic” – it’s anti-democratic.
And what do these politicians do for us? Well, the list of reasons why the NUS has made the news recently isn’t exactly edifying. The no-platforming of veteran gay rights activist Peter Tatchell, a refusal to condemn ISIS and, most recently, a motion encouraging LGBTQ+ societies to drop gay men’s reps as they are more likely to encourage “misogyny, transphobia, racism and biphobia” have all graced the pages of Britain’s newspapers. This isn’t exactly good press.
The issue is that the NUS isn’t run for, or by students. Instead, it seems that a sectional clique controls the union – one that has a political agenda with which many feel uncomfortable. At the last general election the NUS ran a campaign known as “Liar Liar”. The ostensible aim of this was to oust Lib Dem MPs and replace them with Labour politicians possibly more friendly to the NUS’s agenda. This was sheer hypocrisy; some of the most energetic, passionate and enthusiastic activists I have met are Lib Dem students (God knows, they have to be brave) and they were being represented by a union which was actively working against them.
The NUS has lost sight of what it should be. Rather than a vehicle for improving student’s lives, it has become a political tool used to push sectional interests and shut out dissent and democracy. The organisation requires radical and extreme change; to reorganise; to reassemble and most importantly to change the basis upon which it is run. This is change we were promised and yet change that has not, and I am now convinced, will never be delivered. That our tuition fees go to such an authoritarian, obstructionist and, yes, undemocratic association is why York should heavily consider alternatives.