Students angry
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-12-15Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 11
THE National Executive have managed to outrage almost every section and sector in the National Union of Students. .
Twenty months have gone by since the National Organisation of Labour Students (NOLS) took the leadership of NUS, and although it is an improvement on previous Execs, the strategy they have pursued is now falling apart, and being seen to be falling apart.
Last week's NUS conference was the first "reformed conference".
Instead of a continuous plenary where policy was debated and the Executive Report questioned, conference broke into 'commissions" which are supposed to discuss the Executive Report in detail.
The three sectoral conferences (Further Education, Universities and Public Sector Higher Education [PSHE] were also held as part of the full NUS conference.
Angry
The new arrangement was a flop. Delegates wandered around the coffee bar and stalls rather than go into the sectoral conferences or commissions. The reduced plenary time meant that there were only four policy debates and much of the Executive Report was moved formally.
Because delegates were fed up with the sectoral conferences (where nothing positive was decided but the FE and the Universities national committee reports were referred back), and because the National Executive has not satisfied most sections, the plenary was extremely angry.
NOLS, and therefore NUS, are following Neil Kinnock. Demanding negotiations with Thatcher, bleating when they are ignored, and denouncing direct action.
Neil Stewart, in his opening President's address, denounced the picket against Keith Joseph at Warwick, and rounded on the 'far lefts' who seek 'confrontation' NOLS do not have a strategy to fight the cuts, bar helping to continue Joseph to fight in the Cabinet.
Nor is there a strategy for building up the FD sector, or even implementing the policy for FEs passed some three years ago. The FEs revolted. They showed their united disgust by walking off the conference floor together and fielding a candidate for the Executive in a by-election who only lost •, to NOLS by 55 votes, beating the Left Alliance into third place.
Unless the Executive is able to organise a lot of students in a lot of productive activity by Easter, then NOLS could well lose overall control of the Executive.