In a Cherwell article this morning, Luke Barratt, critiqued the motion I put forward to OUSU council for a referendum on the NUS. I don’t want to get into the personal attacks made in the article, or the vitriol with which it is laced – more than a few on Facebook have already elaborated at length about the vindictiveness of the whole thing.
That said, there are more than a few other problems with Barratt’s article.
He contends that I have misrepresented a motion that I described as ‘seeking to ban Yik Yak’. Given that the motion called for a ban on anonymous posting, and that Yik Yak consists entirely of anonymous posts, it seems hard to see how this could amount to anything other than a full ban – especially since the proposer of the motion openly used the word ‘ban’ in his speech. I should know: I was there.
I am glad that he also raises the issue of NUS democracy, and in particular the idea of One Member One Vote, which he implies I oppose. In fact I, along with the other Oh Well Alright Then delegates, have campaigned vociferously for OMOV in the NUS, and last term brought a motion on just this issue to OUSU council. It was the overwhelming defeat of OMOV at conference (along with the attempts by NUS leaders to prevent it even being debated) that did much to persuade us that with no prospect of reform disaffiliation was now the only option. As long as the present system remains, the NUS will remain remote from those it claims to represent.
Finally, we come to the issue of Malia Bouattia. I’m disappointed that Barratt attempts a defence of someone whom almost every Jewish society in the country has condemned. The fact is that, when a minority group expresses major concerns about someone, we believe that they should be taken seriously. And, far from striking a conciliatory note, the Union of Jewish Students have expressed their profound dissatisfaction with Malia, including condemning her first article as President for misrepresenting her meeting with them.
The overall thrust of Barratt’s article seems to be that we seek disaffiliation purely because some people we didn’t like got elected. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We ran on a platform critical of the NUS, but went to conference with open minds. What we saw, however, was an organisation moving inexorably away from the views and priorities of ordinary students, with no hope of reform. We seek disaffiliation because we believe Oxford students will have their interests better represented outside of the NUS.
But, right now, disaffiliation is not even what is being debated. Our motion at OUSU council calls simply for a referendum, so that everyone at Oxford can have a say on the issue. If Barratt is right that our views are shared by only a minority of students, then a referendum will reveal that. We at Oh Well Alright Then have sufficient respect for our fellow students, especially those Jewish students who have raised concerns about Malia, to think they deserve to be able to decide for themselves. It saddens us that Luke Barratt clearly does not.
