Communist Students member James Turley has written this contribution to a debate over the future of Education Not for Sale and the tasks of the student left in the aftermath of NUS conference:

‘Solidarity’ or the politics of Marxism

The annual conference of the National Union of Students was nothing if not dramatic. The main event was undoubtedly the slim defeat of the spectacularly undemocratic governance review, which aimed to strip conference of all its decision-making powers, abolish delegate elections and inflict countless other nips and tucks on student politics.

Despite attempts to spin the conference as a whole as a success for the left – notably by that most reliable source of forced optimism, the Socialist Workers Party, whose Rob Owen claimed that the right was “demoralised and reeling” – it is clear that we have not managed much more than bloodying the nose of the bureaucracy.

The closeness of the vote on the review actually demonstrated the dominance of the pro-review forces – being a constitutional change, the proposal required a two-thirds majority, which it just failed to achieve (ironic that the final burial of NUS democracy should fall foul of a pre-existing undemocratic regulation), enjoying 65% support on conference floor. Meanwhile, the right retains control of the executive. Rumours abound of a putative attempt to call two ‘emergency’ conferences before next April, where further attempts will be made to force through the review.

A tale of two fringe meetings

Well documented as it already is, it is worth going over the run-up to NUS conference, and the interventions of Communist Students, Hands Off the People of Iran (Hopi) and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty’s Education Not for Sale.

Several weeks ago, ENS announced its intention to hold a fringe meeting at NUS conference focusing on solidarity for workers and students imprisoned in Iran. Hopi was invited to provide a speaker, and offered to do so, provided that the meeting was staged as a debate. Alas, this condition was unpalatable to comrade Ismail, and ENS chickened out; in the event, its fringe dropped the question of Iran entirely, and instead piloted the newly launched ‘Reclaim the Campus!’ campaign.

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