"The politicians of reformism, these dexterous wirepullers, artful intriguers and careerists, expert parliamentary and ministerial manoeuvrists, are no sooner thrown out of their habitual sphere by the course of events, no sooner placed face to face with momentous contingencies, than they reveal themselves to be utter and complete fools." - Leon Trotsky 1932

Recently, The University College London Students’ Union (UCLU) voted to ban The Officer Training Corps (OTC) from recruiting at union organized events like Freshers' Fair. The motion, passed at the March 5 General Meeting, said OTC was an external, non-student organization run by the British Military, funded by the Ministry of Defence and - because students who join could be called into active duty in case of a ‘national emergency’ - that constituted a reserve army force, therefore giving political and material support to the war. It went on to say that providing stalls to OTC at Freshers’ Fair amounted to an implied endorsement of the Corps and the Army and their activities by the Union, and directly aided officer recruitment. Despite the noisy presence of a minority opposed to the motion, it was passed by 89 to 59 votes. (See the Motion in full here: Troops out of UCL motion )

The ban has caused quite a stir on and off campus, making the front cover of the ‘Evening Standard’ with the banner headline, "Students Ban Military". By Sunday, it was in most British dailies and made the front cover of the ‘Sun’. Under the title “Our Heroes Deserve Respect” the ‘Sun’ grossly distorted the intent and scope of the motion saying, “Yesterday it emerged students in London – whose idea of hardship and sacrifice is getting out of bed before lunchtime – have voted to ban all military personnel, including cadets, from their university campus”. Patrick Mercer, a Tory MP and former infantry commander, added his voice to the negative chorus: "These students are deeply misguided. They are insulting the men and women who fight for their freedom and the democratic rights of our society." Even the shadow defence minister Gerald Howarth said: “They should have their grants scrapped.”

Speaking about those in opposition to the motion, UCLU General Secretary, Samantha Godwin, said: “they know that if replicated elsewhere, it would become a really effective method of protesting against the war." She explained, "Most people don't realise that Officer Training Corps in universities are responsible for getting 56% of all RAF pilots and 45% of all regular army officers - basically half of the army's officer corps recruitment effort,” and stopping it would have a drastic impact on the ability of the British Armed Forces to function. "The potential for this tactic in applying pressure is huge and that is why we became so adamant about pursuing it." said Sam, who chaired the meeting and spoke in favour of the motion in a personal capacity. 

Sam Godwin, UCLU Gen Sec

Missing from the headline coverage is that fact that the battle over the military ban is just one part of an on-going struggle between the right-wing and the left-wing at UCL, which in turn is an indicator of an even larger struggle over democracy taking place there and in the National Union of Students (NUS) and one might add, the political world beyond.

According to Wikipedia, the purpose of Student Union organizations are, "...to  represent students both within the institution and externally, including on local and national issues." It goes on to say, "Many students' unions are highly politicized bodies, and often serve as a training ground for aspiring politicians."

Donald MacLeod, the higher education editor of the Guardian writes, "For decades the NUS has been a tough nursery of political talent - if you could survive the infighting on the executive and negotiate conference rules you could certainly make it in Parliament - and the long list of past presidents includes the present justice minister Jack Straw, as well as several Labour MPs and Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission."

Because student unions are home to our fledgling politicians what happens there often mirrors, on a smaller scale, the political ideas and balance of forces outside academia. Bureaucratic tactics that lock in minority power, privilege and authority over the majority in the larger political landscape are often mimicked.

The background to the military ban at UCL is important. For some time there has been a series of campaigns in universities around the country and in the federation of student unions, the NUS pushing for what are called 'Governance Reviews'. These reviews propose radical changes to union structure that would see elected executives and councils replaced with an unelected board of directors or trustees.

This quote from the website of Students for Democracy UCL says it all: "The Governance Review would take a union run by students for students and turn its assets over to a corporation run by management for profit. To do this, the Governance Review would change the legal form of the Union, from an unincorporated association with sovereign policy making general meetings to a company limited run by a board of trustees, accountable to no one but themselves. This would amount to a takeover of the Union by its well paid senior management and the end of organised collective student representation at UCL".

Sound familiar? If it does then you can see why it is important to follow what happens in our universities whether you are a student or not.

At the urging of full time, well paid managers affiliated with AMSU (the Association of Managers of Students’ Unions) leaders such as Gemma Tumulty and Wes Streeting, (despite some internal opposition) have been pushing for these reviews in the NUS. On the local student union level, managers have been spurring on the sabbatical officers (who get a paid year out on top of a good, professional sounding addition to their CVs if they don't end up landing a full time job there after school) to push these policies through. In turn, the sabbatical officers have solicited the help of a faction of New Labour, organized independents, and the extreme right wing in the student's union.

As in any struggle, there are conflicting interests. For management, their interests are  mostly financial but, it is also about job security, prestige, and power within the unions. For the right-wing students, it is political conservatism and lack of trust in the broad population of students to run things properly - and personal careerism. For the left-wing, who have been generally weak and unorganized in the past, and who oppose the plan, it is mostly a struggle to keep the last vestige of a political arena open to them.

One of the big features of the Governance Reviews is abolishing student executive officers, leaving executive power in the hands of full time staff. Samantha Godwin, who helped defeat the Governance Review ‘reforms’ at UCL said she thinks the real intention behind AMSU wanting to get rid of general meetings, "is primarily to curb the left" and also, "to increase their job security, making them less accountable." Thus, once governance review reforms are established, the right have a permanent bloc of non-students to push through policies that mostly benefit them.

But it is not only about job security and careerism. There are real material interests at stake. Control of the student's union apparatus also means commercial control of student union businesses and services like the gyms, theatres, cafes and student bars to name a few. For example, UCLU generates over £3 million in commercial revenue as well as £2 million in grants from the government, so the stakes are high. Unions often have huge infrastructures with hundreds of full time, permanent staff members and non-permanent staff. The NUS has £5 million in revenues.

The result of the campaign for changes by Governance Reviews is that most university student unions, with exceptions like UCL, SOAS and LSE, are now run by slim executives and elected student councils and policy-making general meetings are mostly a thing of the past. Referring to those university unions that have been restructured, Sam said "It's no longer a student union, it's a debating society".

Despite these ‘reforms’ going ahead in universities around the country, there was a recent surprise defeat at the NUS annual conference in Blackpool on April 1 where the motion proposing 'change and modernization'  failed to get the two thirds majority needed, missing the mark by 25 votes.

NUS Conference

Rob Owen, a member of the NUS executive wrote "Defeat caused the leadership to lose the plot with denunciations of those opposed to the review and abuse directed at left wing speakers...Policy debate for the next two days was marked by red-baiting..."

This is the backdrop to what happened at UCL regarding the military ban motion and then the ensuing attack on Samantha Godwin and Sham Rajyaguru (the proposer of the motion banning the OTC).

The contending forces in the UCL dispute were, put crudely, the right wing which is comprised of:

a.) Officers and student members of the UCL Officer Training Corps

b.) Full time staffers in union management, and

c.) The "Blairite / New Labour students and their apathetic friends", said a pro-ban student.

On the other side, you have the left which is generally comprised of the anti-war movement including Students for Democracy at UCL Union (SDUCL), the Stop The War Society, People and Planet, Friends of Palestine and left wing independents.

It is openly acknowledged that within the two leading bodies of the UCL Student Union, votes within the Council are dominated by the left, and votes within the Executive are dominated by the right. Sam has a position in both.

With Governance Reviews having failed to implement their changes at UCL, General Meetings are still the top decision making body of the union. To make the quorum (the minimum number who must be present for valid transaction of business) 1% of the student population must be in attendance.

Opponents of the motion banning OTC tried every dirty trick in the book in an effort to stop the General Meeting from taking place at all. According to one UCL union officer, the Media and Communications officer Sean Clothier simply refused to do his duties in promoting the meetings. After all, students can't show up to an event they don't know about!

This type of sabotage has made building for effective General Meetings difficult but, after two failed attempts, it was finally reconvened on March 5, filling the 325 seats of the Christopher Ingold Auditorium. "We made such a big effort to advertise it that the right wing, instead of using their usual tactic of just not showing up and calling ‘quorum’, actually mobilized for it this time...a lot of them came but were clearly still a minority and they could see it," said Sam.

Realizing they were in a clear minority after losing the first motion on twinning with a university in Palestine, they then turned to heckling, loud coughing and misusing ‘points of information’ in a bid to disrupt the meeting. They also tried calling for a vote of no confidence in the chair, which was overwhelmingly defeated. The official statement by Stop the War Society described the meeting said, "It was however, the rightwing opponents of these motions who were out of order, who were...shouting out of turn, walking throughout the auditorium giving instructions to supporters, making disruptive noise for the sake of disruption and ultimately attempted to break up the meeting".

Out of political desperation, they tried to make the meeting inquorate by leaving en masse just before the vote. Chris Dodsworth, who called for the unsuccessful vote of no confidence in the chair, admitted a few days later, "Hey guys, can I just point out why people walked out...It was quite obvious the vote was lost. The reason we walked out was to get ‘quorum’ called to try and stop the meeting going any further...From then on it was quite obvious which way it was going to go. There was no way you were going to defeat the motion even with the people who were left there. If anything, that would have legitimised the meeting as it would then have been inquorate & getting the motions overturned would be trickier.”

Then the detractors of the motion tried to undermine the decision by raising allegations of misconduct and procedural irregularities against the chair. Huge Facebook groups were created and comments from petition sites had to be turned off due to a flood of hostile messages attacking Sam but especially Sham Rajyaguru, the initial proposer of the motion who received dozens of racial slurs from military types as well as threats of physical violence. "Just the level of hostility you wouldn't believe," said Sam.

There was also an organized campaign by the right to have Sam removed from her position and have the General Meeting, and all decisions taken therein, annulled. The UCL Provost (President) was flooded with angry letters from the Officer Training Corps and cadets, some who were not at the meeting, blaming Sam personally and demanding she be removed from office.

In her absence, sabbatical officers met secretly before the official executive meeting to have Sam removed pending a disciplinary hearing, even though no specific allegations were made against her! In a subsequent meeting of the full executive, Jim Hunkin, the former president of the conservative society proposed a motion to the governance committee to annul the results of the general meeting.

One week after the general meeting, Union general manager Robert Taylor, despite staff student protocol prohibiting him from partisan activity, delivered a letter to Sam stating she had been unilaterally removed from her position as General Secretary. Of course, Sean Clothier, the media and communications officer, suddenly found time for publicity and sent out a gleeful announcement that Sam had been suspended.

"The mechanism they used was completely illegal" said Sam. The legitimate way to remove a student officer is through no confidence motion procedures. "It was immediately obvious that suspending me was just a political manoeuvre so they could get me out of the positions that I held on the executive and the Governance Committee to try to basically annul the General Meeting."

Once news of Sam's suspension was out, many on the left pulled together in her defence. Petitions were sent out, Stop the War coalition organized a meeting at UCL and SOAS union co-president Clare Solomon helped a lot. Also, Sam was given the main platform at the large anti-war demonstration in Trafalgar Square.

Amidst all the personal and racial attacks and a campaign of disinformation, eventually all of the allegations have turned out to be false and the sabbatical officers have been mandated by the council to write a formal apology for their conduct. Sam has been officially reinstated and the general meeting decisions are union policy.

Of course, the battle isn't over yet. The right wing plans to have a new motion to bring back the OTC through a referendum.  "So we obviously have to continue organizing because we want to make sure that people turn up and enforce the ban on the Officer Training Corps from recruiting at Student Union organized activities," Sam sums up.

One has to wonder, if this is the political climate at the university level, what kind of shenanigans are the right-wing bureaucrats and careerists getting up to in Parliament?