Ask not what your movement can do, ask what you can do for your movement.

There’s people in the student movement with a dangerous mindset. For one reason or the other, they want to weaken the collective voice that students have in society. Whether they hold this belief in good faith or not, they are utterly; completely and undoubtedly wrong.

Let’s be clear and honest with ourselves, disaffiliating from NUS will never fix a thing. It’ll compound current issues and consume our movement until we have no voice as it fights for it’s own existence in maintaining it’s legitimacy. I doubt we will see mass disaffiliations until we end up bankrupt though.

Britain used to be proud of it’s student movement..

In a world where still very few countries can be proud to cling on to the precious yet taken for granted concept of democracy, Britain is one of the few countries (often in Europe) where students have a strong and well regarded lobbying voice. In it’s 94 year history NUS has gone through periods of rapid and dramatic change. Factions have come and gone; governance reviews as well as the constant legislative tide from successive governments of all shades: red; blue and even yellow.

As a long term student activist and now outgoing sabb, I’ve always found NUS at times to be unfit for purpose. But from last year’s national conference it’s become startlingly clear that the movement is slowly becoming more representative of students and that the appetite for an increasingly activist led approach isn’t going to go unsatisfied.

With well over 670 students unions on the books, an additional 8 unions have joined the fold at last month’s national conference. We’ve so many constituent members but needless to say, not all of these will ever reach a conference floor (for a variety of reasons) and that is unfortunate.

Some people will misguidedly support dis-affiliation in good faith and others will use the current climate to push forward a tired and oft defeated rhetoric. Far from providing any true alternative or strategy in tackling a number of concerns expressed: be they anti-semitism or a lack of representation, I fear what we see is ape rhetoric and knee jerk chest beating.

Given most students can barely afford to survive on the money they have, I’d be wary of denouncing NUS as “irrelevant”. After all, it was somebody who lobbied the government for a student exemption in council tax… NUS are frighteningly racist but I’ll be sure to pass that onto my friends within the Islamic community for the organisation’s fight against PREVENT was totally in vain. Tell that to our predecessors who fought against apartheid in South Africa. It seems when the national union does something robust ,such as call out the Lib Dems during an election campaign for broken promises, it’s sticking it’s nose in where it shouldn’t. Conversely when it does take a more temperate approach, such as not rushing to provide poorly worded and discriminatory policy, it is condemned for “supporting ISIS”. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

It disappoints me that amidst what is a testing time for our movement that individuals who are supposed to be university educated find it beyond their abilities to use just the smallest bit of intelligent analysis to actually weigh up the ramifications of leaving or remaining in the union. For example how leaving the national union will do nothing at all to tackle the problem with anti semitism. Where there is an issue with anti-semitism in the student movement then the student movement should do all it can to drive that scourge out. It must never allow itself to capitulate to bigotry and exclusionary rhetoric. By leaving, anti-semitism has won. Anti-semitism will have driven out the voices of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish students.

Anti-semitism has been a plague on university campuses across the country. I’ve witnessed a number of disgusting attacks daubed across campuses. Students unions at universities are failing in their duties toward their students in tackling all forms of racism. (We’ve not heard all forms of racism mentioned thus far in the debate have we now?) This is the fault of your students union. Not NUS. I will fight against any form of racism as an activist; a sabb; a decent human being. But I’m not responsible for the affairs of say the University of Durham Students Union when I’m at Birkbeck, University of London.

Further despair comes from the misguided belief that NUS “doesn’t represent students”. I’ve only ever heard this trope parroted by people who often aren’t involved in the organisation’s politics. People who probably never took the time to find out what NUS was actually about apart from a free McFlurry or discounted Spotify. I’m not one to denigrate others but where wilful ignorance is concerned, I’m perfectly happy to engage. The majority of people expressing this, have never taken the time to put themselves forward as an NUS delegate; engaged with one of the FTO’s to find out more; read anything further than an article on Guardian Student. Our movement could be a hell of a lot more accessible and inclusive, admittedly it falls short in this department, but there aren’t infinite hoops to jump through.

We can shout that NUS is crap until we are blue in the face but I’d sooner engage with the officers and other elected persons on the issues of concern than chest beating in think pieces and tweets. It’s quite easy to launch missives and tropes denigrating the union as deplorable when you come from a Russell Group university and retire back to your parent’s house in metropolitan suburbia somewhere between Zones 1–3 during summer. I’d hazard a guess that students in an inner city or rural further education college would say different. As would those with caring responsibilities or the 1 in 2 trans students who seriously contemplated dropping out their course. Students unions have often been a safe haven for the marginalised, from LGBT to Black and Disabled. Where the campus itself has proven to be inefficient and hostile, these students have often found themselves at home in NUS.

So while some are busy trying to make a name for themselves and get into The Tab for going against the phantom ‘establishment’, I’ll be doing all I can to ensure my union and others remain in the student movement and defend what little voice we have as opposition to a wretched and callous government.

/Jon