From the 4th-9th of February, Cambridge University students voted in a
referendum on whether to remain affiliated to the National Union of
Students (NUS). The referendum was held due to a motion, passed earlier in the
term, in which a small group of students proposed that the Cambridge
University Students Union (CUSU) disaffiliate, claiming the the NUS had
irreversibly degenerated into a bureaucratic travesty and that we were
wasting our time (and money) by remaining affiliated to such an
organisation.
From the start, the campaign to disaffiliate was a mess of
contradictory moods and statements. Various ultra-left groups and
individuals (many of whom are not even students at Cambridge)
opportunistically tried to use the referendum as platform from which to
launch their idea of forming a new, radical federation of student
unions.
This is an idea that has been raised many times in the recent
period, ever since the NUS Governance Review was pushed through using
emergency conferences in early 2009. The Governance Review did indeed
curb much of the remaining democracy inside the NUS, but as we
explained in our perspectives on the NUS (https://communist.red/perspectives-student-movement.htm),
forming a new, fighting union without first winning over the mass of
students to such an idea (or at least having a mass movement of
students participating in university politics) would be even more
undemocratic than trying to work within the current NUS structure.
From our perspectives: "a new student union
established without their involvement or consent will inevitably pass by the
majority of students unnoticed…it would
in fact be much more bureaucratic and time wasting than struggling to
democratise the NUS we have now…It is
entirely possible that for a time the NUS could come under the pressure of a
mass movement of students, resulting in a much more left-wing leadership, whilst
retaining today’s undemocratic structures".
The
other major concern about the disaffiliation campaign was the way it
was used by the right-wing within the university. Tories have often
called for disaffiliated in many universities, citing the "wasted
money" spent on affiliation fees. These affiliation fees amount to
approximately 30p per student, and in return students receive a number
of services and discounts that they would otherwise not have access to,
not to mention that they (and their university) get a voice at the only
nationally recognised body that is supposed to recognise student
concerns. Recent disaffiliations from the NUS that have occurred in the
UK, such as at Imperial College in London, were very much on a
right-wing platform intended to isolate the university and
de-politicise the student union.
Many of the ultra-lefts campaigning for disaffiliation were all too
happy to go along with the isolationist campaign of the right-wing,
claiming that as long as they won the vote, they would ensure that it
was their message [of the need to form a new, radical union] that made
it across to students, the media, and the government. This optimistic
outlook was not founded on any evidence or strategy, and the tactic of
"we’ll shout louder and campaign harder" should never be the approach
of socialists. Our tactic should be to patiently explain, through
long-term work inside the mass movements and organisations, so that
when students do start to move and fight-back, our ideas can chime and
resonate with people from within the movement, instead of standing on
the periphery of the movement and shouting slogans from the sidelines.
In the end, students voted in favour of remaining affiliated to the
NUS, with a vote of 65% saying "YES to NUS". Members of Socialist
Appeal and the Cambridge Marxist Discussion Group were involved in the
campaign for affiliation, and it was encouraging to see so many
students supporting the idea of fighting for change from within the NUS.
Simultaneously to this referendum, Cambridge University announced
that it would be closing its Education faculty, following on from other
recent attempts by the university to close the Architecture department
and the Portguese course, both of which were successfully fought
against by students. This news, alongside the looming cuts to education
funding that have been promised by New Labour (and that will most
likely be enlarged by a Tory government), shows that students will have
to fight back in the coming period if they are to defend their
education.
Over the past few days, students at Sussex University have occupied
a conference centre at their university in protest against cuts and
closures, and it would not be suprising to see another wave of
university occupations in the next few months, similar to this time
last year, but now directly over the question of education. Socialists
should be prepared to intervene in such a movement, and should arm
themselves with the necessary arguments in order to explain why, under
capitalism, the state cannot provide free education for all, which
should be a right, not a privilege.
