In January 2019, my society’s formal affiliation with NOLS was acknowledged, with affiliation that entitled us to delegate representation at their annual conference and gave our members the right to vote in their committee elections – if they individually joined for £1 a year. This was to be a momentous year, we hoped, as for the first time we thought there was a real chance that a left-wing committee with unwavering conviction to OMOV could be elected. These candidates ran on the fantastic Labour Students Left slate, which we endorsed as a society, along with 27 others of the 42 affiliated Labour clubs and societies across the country.
With our sights set on transforming NOLS, we applied to our students’ union (SUSU) for a grant to fund the travel and accommodation expenses for the conference in Edinburgh. Unbeknownst to us, our delegates were not to be allowed in. In an apparent effort by the previous NOLS committee to undermine democratisation, countless obstacles were put in place to complicate the process of registering as a delegate or to receive a simple email ballot. For example, in order to receive a ballot, each NOLS member from our society had to individually email then-Secretary Sheri-Ann Bhim proving their membership.
The delegate registration process was equally convoluted. One of our delegates, Beth Saul, realised she would not be allowed to attend just days before, having bought tickets and transport with our grant. Our other delegate, Harry McSweeney, travelled all the way to Edinburgh only to be turned away at the door. Not only was this frustrating on political grounds, but the uncertainty and confusion of being in a new place with nowhere to go took an emotional toll on our delegate.
Despite the refusal of our delegates, we remained hopeful that our members’ individual votes in the committee elections would be counted. Yet, despite the Labour Students Left slate receiving endorsement from the majority of affiliated clubs/societies and hundreds of individual members, their candidates ‘lost’ in every single election. The abridged results were swiftly released on March 7th: every candidate with direct or indirect endorsement from the outgoing committee won. Significantly, the full details of the number of ballots counted and the distribution of the vote share were not included.
Suspicions around the legitimacy of the elections arose immediately and, within a matter of days, a wave of disaffiliations from clubs and societies that had backed the Labour Students Left slate began. Overall, 21 clubs and societies disaffiliated from NOLS, including Southampton University Labour Society, where we passed a motion of disaffiliation on April 6th. Staying solidly true to their character of opacity and disregard for their members, NOLS took until the July 25th to acknowledge our disaffiliation after we sent them multiple emails and
tweets declaring our departure.
On August 23rd, a full breakdown of the
election results was finally provided after four long months. The breakdown proved all our suspicions to be true: of the 28,000 Labour members paying student rates (according to a recent NEC memo), 507 votes were counted. To put that into context, Durham University Labour Club alone has over 400 members.
www.bbc.co.uk
