Time left until voting ends: sdfsdf

Blog Posts

NUS Referendum: Trying to keep neutral and Non-controversial

NUS Referendum kicked off today and both camps have been speaking to students. One thing that both camps encountered was that Students did not have an understanding of what NUS was and I noticed that those that did were either involved in NUS liberation campaigns or had an NUS extra Card.

 

NUS has been pathetic in supporting this campaign we have seen on social media how up and down the country National Union of Students advocates and Officers as well as committee members have come onto campuses in numbers. The disappointing thing for students is that students want to see NUS doing something for students. They want to see they care. They have seen nothing.

 

NUS President Malia Bouattia, came from London all the way up to Bradford (and had to go all the way back to Norwich)  to come and campaign and show solidarity with the UBU remain camp. She showed she cares for students and even through the struggles she is going through at the moment she put Bradford to the top of her priorities and I am sure students at Bradford appreciated that. After speaking to her today, her quote of the day will have to be – “If I’ve stayed in NUS this long, Bradford should too!”

 

I spoke to many students today who were frustrated with NUS, most of the time when getting votes I asked students; do you know what NUS is? Majority of the answers were either no or yes it’s the NUS card. Reality is that NUS is supposed to be more than that and without a doubt; UBU is failing, or NUS is failing or a combination of the two to show what NUS is.

 

To the students I spoke about, that were voting remain they saw NUS failures but they wanted to reform NUS because they saw NUS as a way to connect with Unions up and down the country. One thing was clear, their disappointment in NUS.

 

If we leave – we need to make a plan of what is to happen next, when do we “trigger article 50” and give notice of leaving the NUS? What happens next? We need to take plans directly to the students and let them vote for it. This referendum has taught me one thing, many of our students feel disenfranchised with NUS and we, UBU, must put our students at the heart of decision making.

 

If we remain – we must take on our students concerns. We must realise that many of the remain camp have said that NUS has problems and we must be at the heart of solving their issues. Unlike other unions we did not trigger a referendum, ours was due, and our students lack understanding of NUS. This must change. We must actively engage with students and UBU must take responsibility in showing students what NUS offers and how we can utilise them.

 

To sum up it has been an interesting day, voting turnout has been low but we’ve got another day yet.

 


 

NUS’ similarity with Donald Trump

by Aleem Bashir – Leader of the Leave Campaign

In Bradford WE Believe: NUS WE must LEAVE!

 

So NUS referendum Hustings got very heated and the Remain Campaign did what they normally do – Lie and scaremonger. The constant reference to BDS Policy was sickening, the remain campaign seemed to get offended when NUS were accused of acting like Donald Trump, but let’s take it back to the Students Union Awards Conference in July 2015. The University of Bradford Union of Students sent a huge delegation down – 10 Sabbatical Officers and Staff.

 

A normal conference; with factions organising against each other, being vile and showing animosity to each other, and going to twitter to have the occasional rants. From the offset I knew something was funny, but this was my first conference so everything was going to be weird to me. Megan Dunn, the then president, decorated the room quite strangely:

NUS Blog 1

Yes…this is how it was, very interesting way to show everyone who was the president. I had seen something similar:

NUS Ref Blog

This was in North Korea; North Korea held a huge military parade in Pyongyang using the 70th anniversary of the birth of its late leader Kim Jong Il as an opportunity to try to invoke deeper reverence for his son and chosen successor, Kim Jong Un.

 

Have no doubt the NUS at that time to me, looked like some autocratic rule with Dictators controlling the system. Nonetheless I still had hope that this was just a bad first impression. After all, NUS was a “democratic organisation”.

 

NUS Blog 3The first two days went by and the workshops were poor, poor teaching, poor tutors and the whole of NUS just looked like a mess. They quite simply, didn’t have a clue. The third day was when all the drama kicked off.

 

We were told from various sources that NUS’ main sponsor was Coca-Cola, and despite NUS passing ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Policy’, NUS had gone ahead with working with Coca Cola anyway. This was probably because of the lucrative offer they received, but hey I won’t judge a democratic organisation that passes policy not to work with certain types of organisations, but then gets a lucrative offer and accepts it. I think this was something that slipped Richard Brooks mind when he was at hustings, I did need to correct him, and tell him that yes Coca-Cola was on the tables at Students Union Awards 15 and it was their main sponsor.

 

Bearing in mind that this was in Ramadan and many of the Muslim officers there were fasting. The most controversial scene played out, one similar to what Donald Trump has said he will implement and hasn’t, as of yet.

 

Due to NUS completely going against the policy that it had passed many officers decided to make a stand and boycott the awards ceremony.

NUS Blog

Not only did this happen, some Officers made a statement while collecting an award:

NUS Blog

Due to Coca-Cola being on the table, I and fellow comrades were uncomfortable at eating at the event and boycotted it fully. Many of us were fasting and went to another room to eat. To our surprise we were told we weren’t allowed to take the food out of the main room, not only that, but security came requesting all the non-Muslim’s to leave and only Muslim's on a ‘List’ will be given food. Panic and anarchy broke out. We were confused, we were starving; nobody had asked if we were Muslim before coming to the event and what list were they talking about, and more still, were we on the list? After a big hoo haa with NUS, Bolton wanderer’s staff started to give us food. We were very grateful and this was shown on Twitter:

Twitter

This Islamophobia was disgusting. I have never felt this type of discrimination in my life. They made me and fellow officer’s feel like lowly creatures. This is exactly the reason why in December 2016 the institutional racism report showed that NUS had failed Black and Ethnic Minorities.

 

Who knows maybe Donald Trump’s idea of having a Muslim list came from this?

 

NUS is filled with this type of behaviour and this is just one of the examples where black and ethnic minorities are mistreated. This is not an organisation that I feel comfortable being part of. It’s time we left.

 

In Bradford WE Believe, NUS WE must LEAVE.

 


The benefits of staying in the NUS

by Shazmin Akhtar – Leader of the Remain Campaign

I would like to firstly start by naming some of the things that we as a students’ union would lose if we were to leave the National Union of Students (NUS). 

 

  • NUS extra cards – Students from the University of Bradford will no longer have the privilege of purchasing an NUS extra card, a card which in the past has helped our students make hundreds of pounds in savings over the course of their studies. 
  • Liberation support – As a university which has such a diverse student population, one that is made up of people of all different types of backgrounds, including BME, LGBT, women and disabled students.  By leaving we will be disenfranchising our most vulnerable students. 
  • National campaigns – The NUS does campaigns on student issues – such as fee rises, welfare, housing etc.  By leaving we will be losing our voice on a national platform to affect change. 
  • Legal advice – The NUS specialises in students’ unions and has legal experts on hand, that also specialise on issues that may arise within students’ unions.  We will be losing access to that support if we leave. 

 

£30,000 is slightly exaggerated by the leave camp. We do indeed pay to be affiliated with the Students’ Union however; we also receive commission for the amount of NUS extra cards bought by our students.  In fact, in the year 2015/2016 we made back around £6,000 in commission fees from NUS extra cards.  We also get a range of other benefits that make the money we pay to the NUS worthwhile. 

 

The point that certain members from the NUS have been caught dabbling with external organisations that want to influence the internal politics within the NUS is one that is very important and should be taken seriously, but we also know that leaving is not the answer.  We must understand one thing, and that is - Bradford Students’ Union is a part of the NUS to hold them accountable when something like this happens.  We have consistently produced individuals who have directly been involved in holding NUS elected officers accountable, this is vital to keeping the NUS focused on students’ issues that directly impact our students here in Bradford. 

 

The referendum seems to pose a very straight forward question – should UBU choose to remain within the NUS or not.  However, to trivialise the arguments down to the basic yes or no would be unfair to our students and our students’ union.  Am I, as leader of the remain campaign arguing that the NUS is a perfect organisation? No.  However, I do believe that the NUS has made a significant and positive impact on students, in addition to this, I believe that we as a students’ union are there to hold the NUS accountable, something we have continuously done, and I am hoping we will continue to do. 

 


 

NUS: Lies, Racism and Sugarcoated Success

by Aleem Bashir – Leader of the Leave Campaign

The biggest lie we were ever told was NUS represents 7 Million students. They represent their membership. Their membership is students unions. Students unions send delegates to participate and vote at conferences. Students unions elect delegates however; those who are voted in are voted in by a handful of students. This means that those individuals that go to conference do not necessarily represent the views of the student body. This is very concerning because individuals go to conferences and make decisions for the rest of the student population – many times decisions that are not in the interest of the student population.

 


Free Education?

 

  • NUS Failed when Tuition fees were implemented
  • NUS Failed when the fees rose to 9k
  • NUS has failed with the Tuition fees being incremented by inflation
  • Free education is looking more and more unlikely and NUS is failing

 

Failing is a common theme within NUS and unlike Brexit we know what leaving the NUS looks like.

 

Leaving NUS does not stop us from standing up for the rights of ethnic minorities or continuing the work we do with grassroots organizations – something which NUS has failed to do. NUS disenfranchise students, NUS alienates students unions and the factions within NUS are toxic and vile. NUS factions contribute to islamophobia, xenophobia, misogyny and discrimination, but NUS over the years have become very good at sugarcoating themselves to protect their image, sugarcoating their failures as success.

 

NUS has long sugar coated itself but the Institutional Racism report showed what NUS was really like and although they did not explicitly say NUS was institutionally racist they stated that “ the evidence reveals considerable shortcomings, failings and naivety in the understanding of race and racism”. The politically correct NUS, that shouts and screams about equality and diversity, does not understand race and racism!

 

No Organisation has realised its full potential with working with an organisation that does not understand race and racism. It’s about time we built bridges with grassroots organisations, worked with local organisations and worked for Bradford students.

 

Long have NUS groomed Bradford Sabbatical Officers into becoming their puppets, neglecting their role as representatives of the university of Bradford union of students. Do we want future sabbatical officers to become puppets of the NUS? Do we want to be part of a toxic and hypocritical organisation?

 

NUS have built walls stopping us from realising our potential. It’s time we came together, got out our ladders and climbed over! We know what its like on the other side, many unions have disaffiliated and many unions have the light and never looked back, it’s time for us to do the same.

 

#NEXIT #FREEDOM