Leeds student union (SU) are rigging the SU elections.
This week, Leeds University Union (LUU) banned Kate Holmes, the communist candidate, from standing in the upcoming elections, which are due to begin on 17 February.
SU officials have said that Kate cannot participate in the elections because of an “administrative error”. In reality, this is an act of censorship; an attempt to block a candidate who wants to turn the SU into a fighting organisation.
View this post on Instagram
LUU informed Kate that they could not invite her to the mandatory candidate training for the elections, due to a spelling error in her email address. However, Kate also provided her phone number to ensure communication. And she showed up on the day of the candidate training, but was turned away.
SU excuses about an incorrect email address are therefore clearly a red herring; a smokescreen.
Let’s be clear: the communists have been banned because we want to turn the student union into a body that actually fights for the students it is supposed to represent.
We want to end tuition fees, end student rents, and kick arms companies off campus.
Uni bosses and landlords have been making a killing off of Leeds students. Yet the services provided by the university are totally inadequate. And LUU itself is little more than a shop and a bar.
Last year, the university reported a surplus of £60 million. And yet in the last five years, applications to the student hardship fund have increased by 394 percent. For postgraduate students, this figure is as high as 1134 percent.
All the while, the vice-chancellor is living it large on a huge pay packet of over £330,000 a year!
Students deserve much better. Yet when a candidate stands who offers a real alternative, promising to fight for the change that students and workers need, they are unceremoniously barred on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Across the country, universities are facing crisis and cutbacks. At Cardiff University, over 400 workers face the sack, with courses like music and nursing set to be axed.
These cuts will spread. And with our backstabbing Labour government reneging on their promise to scrap tuition fees, it looks like university students will be offered fewer courses and worse conditions – all whilst taking on even more eye-watering levels of debt!
All of this means that, now more than ever, students need unions capable of fighting back and defending them.
Unfortunately, at most universities, student politics remains a farcical affair. Student union elections are often stuffed with hopeless careerists, looking to win cosy paid positions. In many cases, such elections are nothing more than popularity contests, where the latest big name on campus can show off their sense of humour with cheesy campaign slogans based on memes and puns.
This is why we ran in the elections at Leeds – to offer something better.
Kate has responded to this despicable attack on students’ basic democratic rights, saying: “The students union is a cesspit of bureaucrats and careerists. They don’t represent the real interests of students and workers.”
View this post on Instagram
The communists will not be deterred by the machinations of student union bureaucrats. Our campaign will continue. We demand that Kate is reinstated on the ballot.
We will continue to fight for students. We won’t rest until our campus is under the control of the students and workers who keep the university running!
