[Yet while relecting some of the hostility of…]
Socialist Press1975 1975-04-17Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
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Yet while relecting some of the hostility of the membership to continued sell-outs and excuses, the vote for IS also shows that such frustration amongst students an casily be say helsinondent protest 'rank student protest divorced of any political understanding. a line in which IS specialise. The need is clearly for a principled leadership in the NUS.
RENT STRIKES Some the bankruptcy he current tendencies leading the NUS was shown in the discussio 3n Rent Strikes. This is NUS official policy as a tactic in the struggle for increased grants, adopted at Margate last year. Yet to hear many of the Executive ne would doubt they know of •he policy. The re-elected deputy president Alaistair Steward (Broad Left had the nerve to accuse a Surrey University delegate (representing students carrying out official rent strike polier. of making scapegpst of the Executive for his own tactical Executive appears at each conference with a string of excuses.
Similarly the Birmingham occupation was left to collapse, and on the demoralisation that followed the right wing moved in to take the president's position.
BETRAYALS
Charles Clarke showed the leve of understanding which opens the door to such setbacks and betrayals, when he suggested that the problem of the Kent rent-strikers was that they were confronting the "particularly reactionary nature of it's Vice-Chancellor" who was determined to smash the NUS. Yet no way forward was offered, which must greatly encourage all reactionary Vice-Chancellors.
Lancaster too the same sordid story of bankrupt leadership emerged. 33 Lancaster students have been victimised, whereas over 1,000 were originally involved it. action. Yet the 33 are left to face possible suspension or expulsion for carrying out NUS policy. Yet all the Executive will offer apologies and attempt to show these are all "isolated cases"
This IS cleariy not true. Colleges and Universities every. where, with a policy begun under the Tories but enthusiastically backed by Prentice and the