My Experience at NUS National Conference 2018

NUS Conference is an annual national debate, election and learning event for students all over Great Britain. The conference aims to elect its national officers and to pass policies that effect students on a national scale. The conference lasted for 3 days and was very, very eventful. 

Policies 

The policies were really interesting. To vote you were given a green card that you hold up when the chair asks if you vote for, against or abstain. The policy is given to delegates before the conference. Delegates are asked to speak for and against the motions brought forward. After the debate delegates are asked to vote on the policy. All the policies are categorised into different sections, for example welfare, society and citizenship, etc. 

Elections 

The elections ran throughout the conference. The different positions were 

• President 
• Society and Citizenship 
• Welfare 
• Further Education Officer 
• Higher Education Officer 
• Union Development 
• NEC Block of 15 

Each delegate was given a ballot paper book and each election was on a separate page. The candidates for the election were given a certain amount of time to make their speech about why the delegates should vote for them. (It was quite funny because if they went over the chair would say extremely loudly in a microphone “TIME CANDIDATE TIME”. 

Once all candidates had spoken the delegates were given time to fill out their ballot. The ballots were collected by NUS staff and we had to all leave the room, where we would have an access break. A few hours after the election, Jules from NUS would announce on stage who the winner was. 

The Protest 

So this is the section of the article that you’ve been waiting for, the protest. What happened? Why did it happen? *This is completely my own experience about what happened*

Within the welfare policies there was a dispute about an extension in the guillotine. (The guillotine indicated the end of the motions, any policies that had not been voted on when the guillotine is lowered are not heard unless voted otherwise.) The guillotine was lowered and a number of policies were not heard at conference. 

One of these policies were focused on allowing abortion in Northern Ireland. From what I was told there was a 4 week deadline on this policy. If it wasn’t heard at conference, then it would pass this deadline and students would be effected by the decision that is being made about the law on abortion in Northern Ireland, without having a say.  

Outraged students from all over Great Britain stormed the stage to participate in a sitting protest against some of the motions not being heard. Because of this conference was ended and everyone on conference floor were asked to leave. Conference did not re-start for a couple of hours because of negotiations, therefore some of the agenda items were pushed back (such as Society and Citizenship, Welfare and block of 15 elections. 

My stance on the protest 

In my opinion the reasoning for the protest was justified. As someone who works to ensure student welfare is a priority, I thought it was a shame that motions were not heard. Many of the policies that were missed because of the guillotine were extremely important to students across the nation and have the right to be heard. 

However as a result of the protest and the length of the protest, this decreased time for other motions that are just as important but were from different sections. This also had a domino effect on the elections. Three elections were pushed back and the results rather than taking a few hours to announce are currently rolling into weeks to announce. The length of the protest seemed a little unfair to me as this had a knock on effect for other policies and the elections. 

The NUS should look into how their policies are voted for and debated. There is a bigger issue and I believe that the protest did achieve awareness about this issue.