NUS forced to cancel flagship conference over ongoing scandal around Gaza

The National Union of Students (NUS) Lead and Change conference, which was meant to start on Tuesday 29 July, has been cancelled. The NUS was forced to do this due to its venue being occupied by students who have become increasingly frustrated over the union’s inaction over Gaza. They have also threatened disruption if there are attempts to move the conference elsewhere.

NUS: under pressure

The University of Birmingham Guild of Students building has been occupied since yesterday evening by ‘disenfranchised students’, who intend to remain there for what would have been the conference’s three-day duration. Running for almost 40 years, this conference is usually a key part of the NUS calendar.

Earlier this month, the Canary reported that more than 180 elected sabbatical officers and student groups, representing more than 50 campuses across the country, issued the NUS not only with an open letter condemning its silence on Gaza, accusing it of complicity in Israel’s genocide, and demanding it take a decisive stand, but also an ultimatum-take meaningful action on Gaza or face mass disaffiliation.

The failure of the NUS to address these valid concerns has caused anger and discontent among those at university and has now resulted in the occupation of the venue which should have been hosting its flagship summer conference.

A damning statement

Here is the statement issued yesterday evening by a group calling themselves the Birmingham Student’s Assembly:

We, an autonomous grouping of disenfranchised students, have today entered into occupation inside the building of Guild of Students, University of Birmingham, for the duration of the NUS Lead and Change conference.

This comes after NUS have refused to answer our open letter calling out their complicity in genocide, instead responding indirectly to pressure, without acknowledging it, by publishing a statement which pretends to call for justice but which, unlike their older statement on the ‘Middle East crisis’, does not commit to any planned or real action from NUS.

The NUS has long failed to represent student interests, and has not been a genuinely progressive force for decades, as evidenced by the revolving door from the Presidency of NUS into the Labour Party- with many former presidents now responsible not just for the continuation of austerity but also for the Government inaction to properly respond to the genocide in Gaza.

We invite in all sabbatical officers, encampment groups, students, graduates and educators who stand fundamentally opposed to genocide, who have been marginalised by NUS political abdication in the face of genocide. Join us in trying to fundamentally change the role of Student’s Unions and realise our collective political will.

Our occupation will last for the duration of the Lead and Change conference. We are prepared to disrupt any locations, should the organisers attempt to transfer to another venue. Instead, the Birmingham Student Assembly will run an alternative programme of events, inside the occupied Guild of Students building, for students and activists to engage in politics- free from the confines of NUS suppression.

Activists will be deciding on the fundamental principles and constitution of a new Union- one that inherently takes a broad and expansive view of the student- whereby participation is not limited to delegates of Sabbatical Officers, but rather is open to the grassroots and movements that constitute political life on campus and beyond. Using our collective power, and noting the discontent with NUS in the current moment, we shall be setting ourselves up, not to lobby Parliamentarians with petitions and participation in APPGs but as a genuinely radical social movement that stands up for students and young people.

We have already seen commitments to membership from the majority of university encampment groups, as well as Student Unions.

Solidarity forever,

The Birmingham Student’s Assembly