NUS President Aaron Porter announced this week that he will not stand for re-election.
He said he feels the Union needs a “fresh start” and “there needs to be a new President to lead the student movement into that next phase”.
As leader of the NUS since July 2010, Porter played a central role in the student activism over the tuition fees increase. He said in his blog that he was proud of his achievements and claimed that the student response would “go down in the history books”.
Porter has received increasingly personal attacks from those who desire a more radical student response.
He said that “the challenge for the new President will be great”. His successor will have to lead the response to the cuts whilst negotiating calls for militant action from what Porter terms “factional groups”.
The new President will be elected at the NUS National Conference in Newcastle in April.
