Last week’s Union General Meeting (UGM) saw NUS President Wes Streeting address the audience, while a motion to put to referendum the constitutional reforms of the LSESU must roll over to this week’s meeting after heated discussions prevented a vote from taking place.
Streeting, visiting London for a conference on international students, took the opportunity to talk about the implications of the higher education fees review, and the NUS’s proposed local tactics for the forthcoming general election, as well as taking questions on subjects as diverse as Tzipi Livni, radical action and his Twitter habits.
Combating the claims made by the Russell Group, Streeting argued that suggestions that “the ivory towers are going to fall down” as a result of spending cuts were untrue and grossly exaggerated. Accusing vice-chancellors of creating “hysteria”, Streeting warned that students’ unions “at their peril buy into the rhetoric of Russell Group universities”.
With regard to this year’s general election, having assured the audience that MPs “up and down the country” have signed a pledge to vote against fee rises, Streeting asserted that collective local action would leave “politicians quaking in their boots”, provided that students voted in the constituencies recommended by the online service.
Two questions were fielded in relation to the merits of radical action; in both cases, Streeting emphasised the importance of using the “right tactics at the right time”. Alluding to the occupation of the Old Theatre last year, Streeting joked that though sufficiently timely occupations would be “widely supported”, “if you’re just going to have ten people in a lecture theatre, pissing off a load of people”, then smaller demonstrations would be more useful.
In addition, Streeting stressed that “for now, the focus is on the general election” and that civil disobedience “makes a lot of noise, but doesn’t make many headlines”.
Of particular relevance to the LSE was a question about Streeting’s plans to help international students. He argued that a major new project which is looking at “barriers to participation” and the lack of a “welcoming environment” would do just this. In addition, he called upon the government to look again at the controversial Tier 4 regulations, which some accuse of being overly harsh on international students, adding that the problem was not the vast majority of universities, rather the “dodgy English language schools above chip shops”.
A question was posed to Streeting concerning his thoughts on the LSESU’s collaboration with SU ARTS, to which he responded that in a “challenging financial context”, such schemes would become more prevalent. At the same time however, Streeting said that it was “important that different universities maintain their own representative identities”, and that much could be learnt from this “groundbreaking” initiative’s “teething problems”.
Following Streeting’s question-and-answer session, reports were made by some members of the SU Executive. Michael Lok, in his capacity as Chair of the Constitution & Steering Committee, made a statement condemning instances where students had been “intimidated into [not] expressing particular views in UGM motions”, calling it “unbearable” and a breach of “fundamental human rights”.
The first motion to be debated at UGM called for the Students’ Union reform proposals to be put to referendum – a policy that has attracted a great deal of support from the incumbent Sabbatical Officers. Earlier on in the meeting, LSESU Education and Welfare Officer Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang was asked what would happen if students tried to leave the meeting, to which he quipped: “I will stand in front of the door”.Proposing the motion was the LSESU Treasurer George Wetz, who referred to the current constitution as a “disaster for democracy”, and insisted that the new proposals “weren’t just dreamt up in the back room”. He also asserted that the new documents would permit “more autonomy over budgets for societies and the media group”.
First to speak against was second year LLB student Mira Hammad, who argued that the reforms had been carried out in an underhand way. She claimed, “The online survey omitted some important questions,” and that the idea that “people are going to read through the minutiæ of what you’re suggestion” was unrealistic. Hammad also suggested that the proposals were “not aimed at giving students more democracy, but giving more power to the Executive”, a claim disputed by the proposers on stage.
LSESU General Secretary Aled Dilwyn Fisher also spoke in favour of the motion, arguing that though he “didn’t believe in external trustees”, it was important that “the whole student body” had its say on the changes. Fisher also suggested that “It’s not the right of this UGM to stop students from having their say on the future of their Students’ Union”.
Closing the opposition of the motion was third year BSc Accounting and Finance student Rob Charnock, who lambasted the proposals’ current form. Claiming that “far too few students were involved [with the consultation process] for the results to be significant”, Charnock argued that “the draft detailed very little of what was discussed in the meetings that at least I was in”. Having implored the SU to “take it back to the drawing board”, Charnock suggested that the expediency of this process was a result of the Sabbatical Officers wishing to “leave this as their legacy”, and that the Officers should promise to take a 25 per cent pay cut as part of the proposals, in order to be more accountable to the student body.
Several questions were permitted by UGM Chair, Jack Tindale. Former Societies Officer, Zoe Cooke, asked how ordinary students were expected to understand a document that “even people who have been involved with don’t understand”. Cooke also used this opportunity to state that “not a significant number more than [ten] turned up to the consultation meetings”. In response to a question regarding the primacy of the UGM in deciding this matter, George Wetz said, “We bent over backwards to find out what people thought” but that “we think these changes are right for the Union”.
BSc International Relations and History undergraduate Teddy Nicholson questioned the likelihood of turnout for the referendum matching that at the Michaelmas Term elections, which was 20 per cent. Nicholson asked if the vote would be “genuinely representative of student opinion”, given that many students would be put off reading “complex governmental reforms”. In reply, Fisher argued that the turnout “will be bigger than at UGM, and that is what matters.”
Before the meeting was closed by the UGM Chair, and rolled over to this week’s meeting in order that further questions could be asked, a final question was fielded by a member of the Beaver’s editorial board, who asked as to the legitimacy of one of the proposals, to levy a £5 charge on members of the Media Group. Responding, Fisher asked “What makes you different from any other society?” adding that this proposal would “ensure the long-term stability of the Media Group”.
The Chair’s decision to close the meeting was disputed by Fisher; following a brief intervention from C&S, the decision was deemed to be constitutional. The motion will be continued at this week’s UGM.
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