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NUS LGBT conference

Fighting discrimination is political

THE RECENT National Union of Students (NUS) annual LGBT conference saw disagreements surface on a number of issues - within the campaign and about what its aims and aspirations should be. Some even said that the campaign should be 'happy fighting' for legal equality and 'shouldn't be political'!

Tom Penman

Quite how we're supposed to reach legal equality without being political was left unanswered. Others at the conference said that the campaign shouldn't be 'party political', with some using this as an excuse to say that we shouldn't criticise any political party either. This took a grotesque turn when a delegate said that fighting the homophobic British National Party (BNP) wasn't something for the LGBT campaign to do and should be left for the Black students' campaign.

There are other problems with the NUS LGBT campaign apart from the fact that some delegates have the political memory of a gnat. The LGBT campaign committee, for example, costs almost twice as much as is spent on actual campaigning (£9,000 on the committee versus £5,000 on campaigns). As one person pointed out, the LGBT campaign has had policy against the BNP for years but hasn't recently run a campaign on it.

As elsewhere within the NUS, so-called Independents are starting to make gains in the LGBT campaign - an Independent secured election as the LGBT Open Place Officer. The Independents call themselves this because they claim to be acting in the best interests of students without party or faction loyalties.

Of course the fact that there are now 'independent' factions, such as the 'Organised Independents' group, shows this to be untrue. Once elected the Independents generally show their true colours as being right-wing and wanting to make cuts to the democracy and budget of the NUS.

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