It sounds almost farcical: why would the leadership of the National Union of Students try to abolish democracy in its own organisation? CS member Tina Becker reports

Let’s be honest. Most students don’t really know what the NUS is, let alone what it does or how it operates. And who can blame them? Currently, it is not much more than a training ground where people like NUS president Gemma Tumelty learn how to shaft the left and weasel their way up the career ladder. It is where the next generation of Labour Party and trade union bureaucrats is bred.

So why should we be concerned about the attempts by the NUS leadership (NEC) to remove the last vestiges of democracy in that organisation? In its NUS white paper on NUS governance¹ the NEC proposes, amongst other things:

• The abolition of annual conference (to be replaced with a smaller, rally-type ‘congress’, which could merely ratify decisions)
• Local student unions could merely ‘appoint’ delegates and would not even have to pretend to hold elections
• The splitting up of the elected NEC (both the new ‘senate’ and the ‘board’ are to be beefed up with more non-elected members)
• The de facto abolition of the ‘Block of 12’ part-time NEC members.In recent years this has been the only way for minority viewpoints to get a foot in the door. Having been fought for by the left, it is probably the most democratic part of NUS structures.²

Communist Students say it is crucial that we fight for extreme democracy in all spheres of society, including the NUS. In our view, socialism is synonymous with extreme democracy – ie, the rule of the majority. So the working class (which represents the vast majority) must start to prepare to take on a hegemonic role in this society to prepare the ground for the next one. Socialism cannot be delivered from above, by some enlightened Hugo Chavez-type or the party leadership – it must be won through the struggles of the majority of the people. In other words, it starts now.

So if we think it is worthwhile fighting for democracy in the NUS, the question must always be viewed from this perspective: how does this aide the fight for socialism?

Don’t just say no

A few left student groups met up on in London on November 4 to launch a joint campaign against the attacks. However, this campaign has a number of serious shortcomings. While every other organisation sent a couple of representatives, the Socialist Workers Party packed this supposed ‘organising meeting’ with 25 of their members (half a dozen of them only turned up when it was time to vote) and were able to decide the agenda, the political priorities and the composition of the steering committee.

This 14 members strong body now consists of six members of the SWP, two members of Student Broad Left (the group controlled by the shadowy sect Socialist Action) and a couple of Young Greens. And while the SWP could even stomach to have two members of the Alliance for Workers Liberty on board, they used their majority to vote against Communist Students and Socialist Students to be represented.

Why? Obviously, Communist Students have been punished for their public criticisms of the narrow campaign proposed by the SWP – but chiefly because of our involvement in the Hands Off the People of Iran campaign (see article on page xy). I think the main reason SS were not voted onto the committee was their rather poor input: they had not brought any proposals for the campaign and tried to nominate their ‘student organiser’ to the committee – who is not actually a student. A pretty stupid fuck up.

Politically, the campaign is extremely weak. In order to get Fosis on board (the huge, but politically bankrupt Federation of Student Islamic Societies), the SWP has seen to it that the campaign will only say ‘no’ to the proposed attacks. Neither Fosis nor the SWP have an interest in building a campaign that could go further. In fact, Student Respect (as the SWP still calls its student front – for not much longer, now that Respect is tits up) actually proposed to run a campaign “based on the core of activists and unions who understand the nature of the attacks – a campaign capable of reaching out to those who hold an intermediate position”.

But such a campaign is doomed to fail: The white paper expresses clearly the wishes of the Labourite factions, who have a majority on the executive and most of the local student unions. To overthrow this bureaucracy and their crass plans, we need to win support from below, from the mass of students. But the narrow campaign now run by the SWP is unlikely to inspire anybody. In fact, it is designed to be conducted solely at the level of student union bureaucrats – ie, the very people who have launched the attack in the first place.

The formulation was actually changed by a successful CS amendment, but the political direction of the campaign is clear: don’t rock the boat too much.

Communist Students however say that we must us this as an opportunity to fight for a bold campaign to actually expand democracy in the NUS. The current attacks could be a useful springboard for such a broader campaign, which would be far more likely to inspire and mobilise students than mere defence of the existing crusty structures.

One reason why students appear apathetic and uninterested in politics is the highly bureaucratised nature of the NUS. How can we expect students to take seriously the notion of challenging and defeating the government when their own organisation is so remote, unaccountable and is clearly little more than a career ladder for wannabe establishment politicians? So let us start with our own union.

We would argue that the students, staff and all university workers are the people who should democratically run educational institutions, not the vice-chancellors, state bureaucrats or purveyors of pseudo-market imperatives.

Concretely, Communist Students fight for:

• Abolition of the direct election of NUS officers at conference. In the current system, they become little Bonapartes who are not really accountable to anybody (the only time they can be removed is at the next annual conference). Instead, the whole executive should be elected by STV at conference (apart from the representatives elected by the liberation campaigns).
• The NEC should then elect its officers from its own number. They must be accountable to and recallable by the executive – which in turn must be far more accountable to the membership.
• A unified national election day, when all universities and colleges elect their delegates to national conference and the local union executive. This could help to counter poor turnout, increase student participation in union structures and politics.
• Salaried officials and anybody employed by the NEC should receive no more than an average skilled worker. Open the books.
• Full transparency on all matters, especially in all dealings with government ministers and commercial concerns.

What you can do:

Try to become a delegate to the NUS emergency conference on December 4 in Leicester, where the NUS white paper will be voted on (no amendments are allowed). It also needs to be voted through at the regular NUS conference in 2008, as two consecutive conferences have to give it the go-ahead with a 2/3 majority.

Student fees

One area where we need to ensure accountability is over the question of student fees. The NUS NEC has scandalously decided not to organise another national demonstration until 2009, choosing instead to adopt a perspective based on lobbying.

Although the NUS bureaucracy still raises the slogan ‘Free education for all’ from time to time, it has not exactly put up a fight against student fees. Quite the reverse: the key slogan at its national demonstration on October 29 2006 was ‘Keep the cap’ – ie, a demand that ‘top-up fees’ should not be increased. The current, capped, fees of £3,000 per annum are apparently quite all right (see Communist Student No1).

An article in The Independent, proudly posted on the NUS website, reports on a recent speech by NUS president Gemma Tumelty to the NUS campaigns convention, where she warned that students would be “stranded on the margins” if they battled on for free higher education. A “realistic campaign” would have to focus on keeping the cap rather than ditching fees altogether. “Do we really think we can win the argument that those who have benefited most from a university education shouldn’t pay more?”ⁱ

Clearly, Tumelty’s repulsive attitude needs to be challenged head on. Many students can only pay the £3,000 fee by working ridiculously long hours in the worst kind of McJobs. But it looks like we do not have to worry too much: “Applications to university have not dropped as a result of higher tuition fees, according to a new analysis”, reads the lead of another ‘news item’ posted prominently on the NUS website.ⁱⁱ

In reality, this statistic merely reflects the demands of today’s capitalism: a degree is vital to get almost any kind of job. Many young people prefer to accept the inevitability of debts to the tune of £30,000 than the prospect of permanently working in the shitty jobs they have to endure in their student days.

Communist Students demands not only the abolition of the student fees – but their replacement with a “living grant”. Everyone in study over the age of 16 should receive grants set at the level of the minimum wage. And not the slave labour rate the current minimum wage is set at by New Labour.

We say that such a minimum wage must be based on the social category of human need. This is not what the government tells us the system can afford: it is the amount of money students actually need to live full lives in contemporary society – to have time to study, discuss and enjoy themselves to the full in this important formative period. Under present conditions, this means a minimum of at least £300 per week.