UCL: Sam Godwin reinstated, but right-wing still on the offensive
Following on from our previous post, ‘Defend Sam Godwin‘, I’ve just received this news from UCL Antiwar via a Facebook group set up to support the anti-war stance of UCL union’s last general meeting:
Dear All:
We’ve won a major victory in getting our General Secretary restored to her Union post and UCL’s annual general meeting’s policy against military recruitment reinstated. The conservatives have not given up and are now calling for a referendum (during exams) to invite the army back to campus.
-UCL Union Council voted 22 to 7 to reinstate Sam Godwin as General Secretary of the Union, declaring the sabbatical officers decision to “suspend” her completely unconstitutional and beyond their powers, and overturned the decision to “suspend” the results of the Annual General Meeting.
Union Council further voted to suspend all standing orders relating to disciplinary panels until the standing orders can rewritten to prevent further abuses of procedure, and Union Council forced the Sabbs to issue a public apology for their unlawful actions.
That apology can be found here:
http://www.uclunion.org/student-union/noticeboard/
This notice is to update you on the situation regarding the AGM and Union Officer suspensions.
Last night UCLU Council had a motion submitted regarding these issues which mandated all suspensions to be reversed.
The Sabbatical team has been mandated to issue a public apology for “suspending” Samantha Godwin as General Secretary, this “suspension” was considered an act of abuse of the procedures and the sabbatical officers were found to have acted inappropriately by a vote of Union Council.
Sam Godwin as General Secretary, and Jim Hunkin as Acting Finance and Administration Officer have been reinstated with immediate effect. All motions passed at the reconvened AGM are now considered to be UCLU Policy.
The UCL Union Sabbatical Team 07/08”
This means that for now the attempt on the part of the UCL sabbatical officers and Union management to illegally subvert UCL student’s democratic choice to end support for war and military recruitment has been stopped and the Union’s policy against military recruitment and the officer training corps remains in effect.
-The right-wing at UCL Union hasn’t given up and are now calling for a campus wide referenda to let military recruiters from the regular army back into union events, in addition to the Officer Training Corps.
Today, Jim Hunkin (former president of the UCL Conservative Society, acting Finance officer) disregarded the Union’s policy which he mandated to follow and proposed that the Executive call a referendum on military recruitment, circumventing the usual requirement that 5% of UCL students petition for a referendum. This attempt by the rightwing of the Executive to cling to a pro-war stance ignores both Union Council which is constitutionally superior to the Executive, and the student body as represented in a general meeting.
The Executive meeting itself was a farce; the rightwing members bullied the committee disallowing any debate on the issue after dragging it out until progressive executive members had left; the meeting was also below quorum and declared inquorate at the time the vote to hold a referendum occurred and probably did not have constitutional standing to take such an action.
-A referendum could not come at a worse time as it is now the exam term and students are put in the unfair position of having to choose between revising for their exams and defending the progressive political position that we’ve successfully struggled for this year.
Unlike in a general meeting where a parliamentary procedure ensures balanced debate with voters being given equal chance to listen to both sides of the argument, in a referendum the pro-war lobby will be able to continue its misinformation campaign against us, and with many full time sabbatical officers who aren’t taking exams who can devote themselves to campaigning, as well as extensive support from officer training corps members outside of UCL. Their plan is to hold the vote online and keep voting open for long enough to reach the desired result. The terms of the referendum is effectively being stacked against us.
If everyone who is at UCL who can contribute to the campaign to keep the military out of our university could contact the Stop the War Society by way of a personal message to this account, that would be greatly appreciated. We need all the help we can get as anti-war student activists at UCL are stretched for time and resources as we have our exams and many of the principle organisers are final year students.
Please get in touch, any help and all ideas are welcome.
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UCL Stop the War email: