Build a campaigning student union | Socialist Action 1983

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-2 of 7; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 4 of the scan

NUS CONFERENCE, held Monday 7 - Friday 12 April in Blackpool, was one big contradiction. On the one hand it reflected the outburst of campaigning activity by students in the last year. On the other there was a clear absence of any organised current or leadership capable of drawing together all those struggles into a campaignimg NUS.

A growth of campaigning action students dominating the 2 November demonstration against apartheid, organising demos against the Fowler review the backdrop to the most important shift in NUS policy for over a decade: the adoption of a policy in favour of British withdrawal from Ireland. This should now lead to campaigning action by NUS's one million plus members to get Britain out of However, the executive elections showed what Is sull to be cone to form a campaigning leader. ship. In the elections Socialist Students in NOLS (SSIN, organised by Organiser) presented themselves as the Labour left campaigning alternative to NOLS. SSiN won three places on the executive, which is composed of supporters of NOLS, SSiN, the Left Alliance, plus one independent and one SWP member.

But contrary to SSiN's claim, their election is not simply because they are regarded as a broad campaigning wing of NOLS. SSiN has the success it does because NOLS refuses to campaign against certain Left Alliance and other candidates. NOLS explicitly prefers an alliance with the coalitionists than with Labour left candidates in the form of SSiN. In the Vice President Welfare election where SSİN canadate simon NOLS called for a vote for an independent, Linzi Brandt. Opposition to this political alliance of non-Labour socialist candidates resulted transterred to SsiN.

Without doubt however SSiN also picked up the votes of political opposition to NOLS by those who identity themselves with the Labour Party, rather than the SWP or RCP type of NUS leadership that was responsible for the fiasco of the Fowler demo where 35,000 students wearily and pointlessly trailed round the streets of London. political support for SSiN.

with occupying colleges and supporters of Socalls Pottinger was elected, candidates against being - but not with the Inis is tar irom posiuve IS THE REAL MAD MAN