Under capitalism, starvation, war, poverty and environmental destruction blight the lives of millions the world over. At the same time the enormous wealth, resources and human talent that exists in the world is squandered.
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Under capitalism, starvation, war, poverty and environmental destruction blight the lives of millions the world over. At the same time the enormous wealth, resources and human talent that exists in the world is squandered. |
NUS conference – reality seeps through
Last week’s NUS (National Union of Students) annual conference was forced to partially acknowledge the reality of student politics. This is a direct product of a shift to the left among tens of thousands of students as world capitalism proves crisis-ridden and bankrupt.
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Writes Hugh Caffrey
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Traditionally dominated by the right-wing Labour-‘Independent’ faction alliance, this year the Left made important gains. Motions opposing the war on Iraq and for free and fully funded education passed with sizeable majorities. All Lefts standing for part-time positions on the national executive (‘Block of 12’) were elected, as was the Left candidate for VP Education. The Left came within 3 votes of winning the presidency – apparently many SWSS (Socialist Worker Student Society) delegates were absent when another 4 Left votes would have captured the most important position in the NUS. Certainly, this shows the need and possibilities for a mass fighting class-based socialist grouping within NUS and on campus. Socialist Students has the construction of this as our strategic aim.
Over 100 first-time delegates were elected to the left of official NUS policies – importantly, many from colleges – as opponents of top-up fees and/or the war. Several of these have asked for more information about Socialist Students and our campaigns. Many more could have been won on and off the conference floor by a larger Left with clear policies. The Campaign for Free Education (CFE) and the SWSS, both with much larger delegations than ours, dismally failed in this. In a right-wing sponsored motion condemning a SWSS member on ridiculous grounds, the SWSS were completely incapable of mounting a defence to win unaligned delegates confused by the avalanche of propaganda and lies. Over 100 abstained, more than enough to potentially defeat the motion. In most respects, these ‘Left’ organisations were indistinguishable from Labour, who pretended radical opposition to the war and top-up fees to abuse the trust of more naive delegates to entrench their bureaucratic positions.
As a result of student radicalisation and our arguments on campus and at conference, a section of the bureaucracy has been forced to the left, and another section has started to find the courage of long-hidden convictions. Socialist Students will fight alongside all those currently opposed to government policies, while explaining our ideas and seeing the struggle through while others fall by the wayside.
The most right-wing elements in desperation mounted venomous attacks on the left. One motion unfortunately passed openly attacks ‘the political Left’ (ironically including Labour in this!); motions which didn’t make it to conference also accused ‘the Left’ of ‘extremism’ and ‘racist attacks’. An ‘extreme’ right-winger accused SWSS of being ‘brown-shirts’, that is, Nazis.
Socialist Students members spoke during several debates – on the war, on free education, and in defence of NUS democracy. Clearly differentiating ourselves from Labour (who on certain issues SWSS uncritically allied themselves with). We attracted several new faces to our public debate. Competing with the England match as well as last-night exhaustion of delegates, new faces included 2 Palestinian students and a Rwandan student. Our ability to get a hearing among students of widely varying backgrounds verifies our hard work and political clarity. We distributed hundreds of leaflets, sold 26 copies of The Socialist, and 8 books.
The world crisis of capitalism and the particular crises of Labour and education funding will further radicalise students. We are building on campuses at grass roots level, the most important task. To aid this, we are standing again next year for conference, and aim to double the size of our delegation, stand for the executive, and put forward motions on a wide variety of issues affecting students. We will strengthen our position among college students, under-represented and excluded in official NUS despite being a majority of members, and will among all sections of working class and radical students fight for student rights, a democratic campaigning NUS, and socialist change.