Wednesday 28-03-2018 - 09:38

Our media observer Jamie Murphy takes us through the politics, debates and reform of NUS Conference Day #1.

It is upon us! From budgets to Brexit to institutional bias, the future of university policy is being debated and created in Scotland’s historic port city Glasgow.

Day 1 of the 2018 NUS Conference featured a show-stealing early speech by current NUS President Shakira Martin. Her passionate and moving opening remarks, tackling topics of such stature as Brexit, racial discrimination and the value of standing together – in her words, ‘building bridges, not borders’ – served as a standard-setting opener to what has quickly turned into a thrilling platform for reform.

Before motions were debated, however, Shakira pointed out a litany of achievements made by NUS over the previous year since she accepted tenure. Achievements such as the extensive training of staff in racial equality measures, engagement strategies with parents of students, and work conducted on behalf of striking lecturers to see a fair and balanced result from the recent strikes.

So now to the politics.

The proposal concerning student poverty (motion PC101) was arguably the biggest challenge to be tackled today. Shakira Martin continued her strong performance in favour of the proposal to lobby government for a more realistic student maintenance funding system, amongst other proposed reforms. This proposal, which Martin said would help students ‘who had to choose between eating and heating’, was passed unopposed, though certain proposed amendments prompted further debate.

But if the proposal concerning student poverty today seemed the most likely to enact positive change, it’s swift approval and near unanimity in approval belied what was to come next.

The Brexit issue had landed.

Motion HE102 took into consideration the fact that 74% of all UK voters aged 24 or under voted to remain, and analysed other concomitant issues for students with regards to Brexit, including student mobility.

What followed was an unanticipatedly lengthy discussion surrounding a single sentence in our conference documentation. The sentence, in the ‘Conference resolves to’ section of an amendment, read: ‘To campaign for a second referendum on the deal negotiated on Brexit’. To summarise a protracted debate that saw tempers rise across institutions, delegates in favour of the motion argued that the voice of the young people had not been heard, and that Brexit would disproportionately affect those who were not of age to vote in the 2017 referendum. Meanwhile, those in opposition to the motion contested that a second referendum would undermine ideals of democracy by invalidating a democratic decision, and that it could potentially exacerbate the budding right-wing nationalism spreading in Europe and the UK.

For some time during this debate, the conference stalled. Officials consulted on how to administrate the conference during such a hotly contested point. But in the end the motion ‘Students and Brexit’ was passed in its entirety, with resolutions including ‘To negotiate for special immigration status for EU and UK students and academics’, ‘To lobby stakeholders in the UK, including MPs and MEPs, to protect student mobility after Brexit’ and, of course, ‘To campaign for a second referendum on the deal negotiated on Brexit’.

The remainder of Day 1’s conference saw more consensus for motions, such as Motion HE103 that saw delegates of the University for the Creative Arts Students’ Union expose the shocking costs arts students can pay for their projects and basic materials, like fashion students who have been known to spend up to £5,000 of their own money on materials.

Despite the late hour at which the conference concluded, it was clear that delegates were still keen for more debates. Tomorrow looks set to be another passion-filled day at the Armadillo!