I think this is a disgusting manoeuvre, signed by every member of NUS' ruling clique to boot. It's the old Blairite trick of taking something that's broken, doing a 'reform' that benefits you and your mates while making things worse, and then painting all your opponents as stuck-in-the-past, anti-reform and anti-change. You'd think this tactic would've stopped working by now...

Mate, the only reason you're pissed off about the review is that YOUR powerful clique (faction to NUS hacks) won't be able to call the shots any more. Perish the thought that the NUS will actually be representative of its members!

Good luck at conference guys.

EASY! EASY!

So basically, you're arguing nothing. It's either a reform or not, it's either for the best or it's not. What's wrong with the review - tell people that. Is it that you disagree with the following?

- X4 extra rep for FE

- Full-time International Students Officer

- Creation of part-time and mature students officer

- Increase in policy conferences and summative responses

- Increase of non-portfolio place (12 to 15)

Or is it that, you like the Hard left, feel uncomfortable that ordinary students getting involved will increase and rat you out as being the unrepresentative, minor few that you are?

I suggest it's the latter.

I'm pleased to say that the Review failed to recieve the support of 2/3s of conference (by a small margin) and thus, fell.

In response to Gemma I'd also like to point out a few things. I am a member of an FE college, and painfully aware of the inadequacies of the current NUS consitution in representing FE views at conference. Despite having tens of thousands of students in Blackburn College, we have a delegation to conference of 3 - a delegation which year in year out is reserved solely for HE students (who make up a tiny proportion of the college student population) as they are the only section with an established union.

This year I set a precedent with my nomination in college by overturning the SUs initial decision to select only delegates elected in HE, getting myself selected from FE as one of the 3 delegates. Even still, the protection of FE student delegations is clearly lacking in the central organisation, and our under-representation in NUS' official bodies is blatant.

The majority of the argument in favour of reform is shared on both sides of this divide;- the disagreement arises specifically over the consitution proposed by the NEC and Labour delegates (or the 'literally hundreds of NUS members from across the country' - if you do insist on maintaining this "distinction").

In my opinion the only 'misconception' in my pevious article was based upon a focus around the issue of elected conference delegates. In fact, there are far more issues at play with regards to this review than I felt I could raise in a relatively short piece; though Gemma's report would suggest a high level of inclusion in the drafting process of the consitution, several complaints have been made about the process. The Review Committee kept no minutes of their meetings, nor any report of how the submissions affected the drafting of the constitution. Though the pro-review camp have claimed the legitimacy of the support of most student Unions, little is to be claimed in the way of cross-campus discussion on the review. In most cases, the Review camp have settled instead for lobbying individual Presidents and convincing SU officials rather than introducing the debate to the wider University. On occasion when such debate has been had (such as in Leeds) a clear majority voted against. Even up until the point of conference, the lack of general discussion over the issue was clear as for most delegates, the first they heard of the Review was as they came through the door.

Under the new consitution, Annual Conference (as the 'sovereign' body of NUS) was to be reduced in size and policies drafted to be discussed were not to be voted upon and passed at individual student unions, from small, regional 'Zone Conferences', where delegates would not vote on any of the issues they discussed. Not only would these Zone conferences fragment political discussion (making it difficult for universities on different sides of the country to co-operate effectively on policy making) but also the power of actually drafting policy would be taken from these 'informal' (sect. 3.4) meetings by a committee in control of the conference, who would decide at their own disgression which discussions were 'uncontroversial' enough to draft policy over. As for Annual conference itself, section 3.6.20 of the Review states that it is to become an uncritical 'celebration of the students movement' so as to encourage positive feedback from first-time delegates.

The 'highest political decision-making body in the NUS' Gemma mentions as the 'Senate' would indeed have been introduced through the Review. It would have been merged from the currently useless National Council and the highly active and effective Block of 12. Though this body would be expanded it would also be made voluntary (taking resources away from campaigns not endorsed by the National Union) and though it would be responsible for much of the political activity of the Union, what constitutes 'political' would have been re-defined. A board of trustees would be introduced to deal with “uncontentious” issues such as finance, legal policies and appointments of staff. Not only this, but under Section 66. of the Review they would have the power to overrule any decisions made by conference, the Senate or the NEC over such issues. There are no decisions more political to an organisation than control over its finances. Through this Review, NUS would have subjected the wills of conference entirely to a small board.

There are more issues surrounding the constitution that should have been resolved, but for now we can satisfy ourselves with the fact that NUS democracy has been temporarily saved. Though, as the pro-Review campaigners stated at conference, 'they will be back'. We can only hope that the pro-reform, anti-Review camp can maintain and build upon the arguments we won at conference, and be ready for them on the next assault.