Former Oxonian and Oxford MEP candidate Julia Gasper has infuriated members of the University with her comments that there are “far too many homosexuals in Parliament”.

Gasper, who is an MEP candidate for South East England, also stated that networking application Grindr should be banned, having previously called the gay rights movement a “lunatic’s charter”.

Dr Gasper, who studied for a D.Phil in English Literature at Somerville College, had previously been a UKIP chair in Oxford, and stood down in January 2013.

The comments, which appeared on her blog ‘Newsflash from UK’ in April, were made in reference to allegations that Grindr was used during the 2011 Tory Party Conference to advertise a sex party. She also claimed that, “There are far too many homosexuals in Parliament. Even the Speaker of the House of Commons, Nigel Evans is under investigation for sexually harassing other men.

“They are only 1.5% of the population, a proportion that justifies about ten MPs in total, yet there seem to be hundreds of them, all in important positions and giving each other favours. That is a violation of democracy”. She continued, “I call for the banning of Grindr and similar networks that damage public health.”

OUSU’s LGBTQ rep Dan Templeton voiced the disappointment of University members, stating that it is “unfortunate that candidates such as Julia Gasper feel as though homophobic comments will help their election campaigns, especially in the light of previous comments made by political figures in Oxfordshire.

“Incidents such as this remind us that though we can celebrate the advances of the LGBTQ community, there are still those that hold alarming prejudices and wish to actively discriminate against LGBTQ people.”

As well as describing her statistics on the percentage of gay people as “absurd”, Templeton responded to her previous comments that LGBT History Month organisers exaggerated the level of persecution of gay people in the Holocaust, and that gay people need to “stop complaining about persecution” and start expressing “gratitude to straight people, on whom they are reliant to be born”. He told Cherwell, “Perhaps she should instead focus her efforts on helping a demographic that were murdered during the Holocaust, and which continues to face prejudice in the modern day, and also on improving the representation of all sections of society in Parliament”.

Jesus College Equal Opportunities rep Douglas Cameron-Hobbs, however, remained cautious about giving Gasper’s comments publicity. He said, “A balance needs to be struck; whilst we need to expose such abhorrent bigotry for what it is, we must also be careful to prevent people like Dr Gasper from using the media as a forum to air their despicable views.”

Meanwhile, seperate comments made on Dr Gasper’s blog with regards to Amnesty International have attracted criticism from their supporters within the University. Last month, she accused the charity of having been “hijacked […] by dubious people with a range of increasingly dubious agendas”.

She launched an impassioned attack on the charity’s support of reproductive rights (including abortion), and their decision to oppose the criminalization of sex work. She stated online that, “Instead of campaigning for victims of political tyranny, it started to follow trendier causes of the permissive era”.

Addressing the charity’s stance on prostitution, she claimed, “Amnesty has now gone so far downhill it is hardly recognizable. It has published a new policy document calling for the legalization of prostitution world-wide. It is calling prostitution ‘Human Rights’. In this document, we find a gruesome hotch-potch of left-wing euphemism and ethical deformity”.

She also alleged, “Equal right of access to prostitution is now proclaimed to be a Human Right! Yes the old, the ugly, the poor and the disabled must according to the new Amnesty, get their rightful entitlement to some ‘sex services’ from ‘sex workers’ to enhance their ‘quality of life.’ The grossness of this is beyond belief”.

A spokesperson for Oxford Univresity Amnesty International told Cherwell, “We fully support Amnesty International’s protection of reproductive rights and the rights of sex workers.

“Amnesty is primarily focused on the protection of human rights, of which both reproductive rights and the rights of sex workers are key. This is relevant to the decriminalisation of prostitution as this helps to reduce the persecution of and violence towards sex workers themselves”.

Gasper, declaring that she “didn’t want anything to do with the Cherwell newspaper”, refused to comment on her various claims.

Little sand timers have been introduced into the showers of all student accommodation in Hertford as part of an initiative to encourage students to be more conscious about their shower times.

JCR Rep Paavan Buddhdev, the instigator of the scheme, said, “Monitor your time spent showering, start cutting down that time, save water – and hence save the planet – and save time – and hence save your degree!”

Josh Platt, Hertford’s JCR President, commented, “The aim of the scheme is to make people think about how much water they’re using, rather than to actually stop them having longer showers if that’s what they want to do. They’ve been placed in all our annexes and I’m sure students will give them a go. Hopefully they will prove successful and improve the College’s green credentials too. Wat-er great idea, right?”

The idea was put to the JCR last term and was met by general approval.

Buddhdev told Cherwell, “I proposed and passed the motion through the JCR halfway through Hilary after getting the idea from the TEDx conference that happened in January – everyone who went to that was given one.”

“After putting mine up in my corridor’s bathroom, people living near me started talking about it, and even if they weren’t cutting their showers down to four minutes, they were at least becoming more aware of how long they were spending in the shower. The motion we passed last term was to buy them in bulk, and this term we’ve been plastering them everywhere. The response so far has definitely been positive.”

Second year Hertfordian Liz English remarked, “It’s a great idea to save water and time and it makes you feel extremely guilty if you’ve still got shampoo in your hair by the time the blue sand has all run out.”

Disaffiliation from the NUS is certainly possible. The question confronting Oxford students is whether or not it would be desirable. There is no straightforward substitute to the NUS, as approximately 95% of all higher and further education unions are affiliated to it. However, there are two
plausible alternatives. The first is to join an organisation like The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC). The second is for OUSU to aim to ‘go it alone’ and try to perform the functions that the NUS currently does for it.

1. The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts

The NCAFC is a democratic, membership-based organisation that was created in February 2010 at a convention hosted by the University of London. The NCAFC took a leading role in the 2010 protests against tuition fees – a role many students felt the NUS under Aaron Porter failed to provide. As the organisation is currently constituted, no Student Unions are currently affiliated to it. This is because members only join only on an individual basis.

However, it is the only student organisation in the country, other than the NUS that currently has an infrastructure in place capable of organising national campaigns across multiple universities. The group is also thought to have many of the democratic and transparent structures that the NUS is sometimes claimed to lack.

2. OUSU

OUSU has plenty of potential and is still growing as a students’ union. If Oxford students were to disaffiliate, it would be able to represent students on at least some level, and cooperate with the NUS, as and when
Oxford students want it to.

One of the unions that has done this is the Imperial College Union. A founding member of the NUS in 1922, ICU chose to disaffiliate the following year, due to increased membership costs. Since then, it has repeatedly re-affiliated and disaffiliated.

[mm-hide-text]%%IMG_ORIGINAL%%9600%%[/mm-hide-text] 

The ‘No’ campaign, called ‘Believe in Oxford’, will be keen to demonstrate the leadership potential OUSU has shown in the past. For instance, in 2003, OUSU published a paper named ‘The Alternative Future of Higher Education’ that called for direct, progressive taxation to fund Higher Education through increases in income tax at the top end, as well as the introduction of a non-means tested living grant. However, that the current OUSU executive largely want to stay in the NUS should not be ignored.

Campaign leaders for the rival campaigns, ‘YES2NUS’ and ‘Believe in Oxford’, have both been chosen by unopposed election.

OUSU President Tom Rutland, who heads the campaign to keep Oxford affiliated with the NUS, told Cherwell, “I’m excited to be leading the campaign. Whether it’s the access funds worth hundreds of millions of pounds NUS have saved from the cuts, the liberation campaigns they champion for LGBT, BME, disabled and women students, or the discounts over 2000 of our students enjoy with their NUS Extra Card, Oxford students benefit by being part of NUS and having representation for students nationally.” Around 10 people attended the “Yes” meeting. Among them was OUSU President-elect, Louis Trup.

Supporters of staying affiliated have emphasised the series of positive initiatives that the NUS has undertaken this year, including the securing of £45 million in postgraduate student support and saving hundreds of millions of pounds of undergraduate access funds from proposed cuts.
They also point to the fact that the NUS has provided OUSU with two grants of £1,000 this year, one for environmental work with the University, and one for its Student-led Teaching Awards, in addition to a further grant of £2,000 to start the OUSU Women in Leadership Development Programme.

Rutland commented, “The NUS has been an invaluable source of support to me and the officer team over the last year, and I know that next year’s team are keen to remain in and receive the same support. Disaffiliating from NUS would cost Oxford students money, isolate us from the national student movement, and weaken both unions. Hopefully when Louis Trup and I agree on something, it’s good for Oxford students – vote YES2NUS!”

Meanwhile, the campaign in favour of disaffiliation from the NUS is to be led by Jack Matthews, Geology DPhil student at University College, and Eleanor Sharman, a Philosophy and Theology undergraduate at Oriel.
Sharman told Cherwell, “What unites its members is a passion for change. A community has formed from common goals: denying the NUS’ claim to represent students at Oxford, and demanding that it open its doors to transparency. Believe in Oxford is a campaign financed exclusively by students here (with a donation cap of £25). It will only spend money that individual members of the University are willing to give.”

The disaffiliation campaign is not opposed to the NUS in principle, but objects to the current state of affairs. Matthews remarked, “For three years I have worked tirelessly to reform the NUS into an open organisation that actually works for students. What I have encountered is a body that has no interest in change, and that seeks to preserve the cosy arrangement of the status quo, to the detriment of its members.
“It’s time for us to stop wasting tens of thousands of pounds to an organisation that simply doesn’t care about our views. I believe in Oxford, and I believe in the strength of our Student Union – that’s why I will be voting ‘no’ to NUS.”

This is the first year that there has been a referendum in Oxford over NUS affiliation, after the University ceased to earmark funding specifically intended for NUS affiliation. OUSU is now free to decide whether this money is to be used to continue its relationship with the NUS.

The referendum on NUS affiliation, open to all students, will be held from Monday to Wednesday of 4th week.

The NUS discount card has traditionally been seen as the most obvious benefit of NUS membership. However, with many shops and restaurants now offering a generic student discount and some Oxford colleges setting up their own discount schemes, some students are increasingly questioning whether having an NUS Extra Card is worthwhile.

St John’s and Balliol both have college discount schemes, with the Oxford Union also negotiating ‘Treasurer’s Treats’ for its members at various businesses. These are perhaps more useful to Oxford students on a daily basis, considering the number of independent businesses in the city. On the other hand, access to these discounts requires membership of a college or society that operates a discount scheme and claiming to represent a market of seven million consumers is an obvious advantage for the NUS, when negotiating discounts; especially with national chains.

By far the most valuable discount available with an Extra Card is the partnership the NUS announced in September 2013 with The Cooperative Food. They negotiated a discount of 10% for all Extra Card holders on their groceries from the Co-operative at more than 3,600 of their food stores. At the same time, given that many Oxford students eat their meals in their college hall, the usefulness of this discount may be limited. 

Other discounts which cardholders are entitled to, such as 10% off at ASOS or 20% off at Vision Express are also worthwhile. But it is questionable how useful or substantial some of the discounts the card offers are. For example, the offer of Virgin Balloon Flights for £89pp or 4% off holidays with easyJet Holidays are less appealing.

Finally, the NUS Extra Card is not prohibitively expensive at £12, and can be used effectively if one is aware where discounts are available. This makes the loss of eligibility for the card Oxford students will suffer, if disaffiliation occurs, something that many are likely to consider when they vote.