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At its last conference, the NUS elected its first president from outside the Labour Party for decades, Kat Fletcher. This change represents the anger that many students feel towards careerist New Labour student politicians, who prop up a government that is privatising higher education – as well as just about everything else – and took the UK into a war for oil in Iraq in the face of mass opposition. The support for New Labour amongst the leadership of the student movement has put a brake on struggle, and alienated many students from getting involved in the NUS in the first place.

We have to reclaim the NUS as a fighting body for students, and this involves making full use of its democratic structures. Last summer, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NUS pushed a motion through an extraordinary conference calling for a reduction in the length and size of the NUS’s Annual Conference, a review of the size of the NEC and abolition of the Further Education Sector Conference. These amounted to an attack on internal democracy of the NUS in the name of ‘saving money’, which Socialist Students opposed: the money should be fought for along with fighting for other student rights, and this can only be done effectively within a democratic union.

Working to change the NUS nationally must go hand in hand with efforts to involve students in their local unions. There is an unfortunate tendency for the left of the student movement, including Kat Fletcher, not to build support on the ground but to rely on the NUS bureaucracy. After the bill introducing top-up fees was passed by the Lords, the NUS website simply called on students to email their MP. Although lobbying can play an important role, it is only through mass movements of students linking up with the trade unions that fees will be beaten.

A strategy for victory would initially involve calling a midweek demo but, unlike previous years, this should only be a start, and should be used to build for a national day of student walkouts. It is vital that we do not limit our struggle to the students alone. We have to link up with workers on campus and beyond. NUS needs to identify that the cuts in higher and further education are a feature of the cuts package in the public sector and therefore actively support trade unions forced to take industrial action against this agenda. If any campus or public sector unions are in dispute with the government at the time – which is quite likely given New Labour’s continued attacks - student action should be coordinated with them to create joint action against privatisation and cuts.

It is also necessary for the NUS to adopt clear policies outside of those issues of immediate concern for students. Most young people opposed the invasion of Iraq and are concerned at the role imperialist governments are playing around the world. The majority of students have to work during term time, and are affected by issues around pay, housing and rights at work. There are also concerns about the recent successes of the far right and an increase in racism. The NUS should involve itself in these and other campaigns, as well as arguing for general principles, like the public funding of education and services. It is time for today’s students to break with past failures and create a serious fighting opposition to Blair’s attacks.