The Guild is set to bring a motion to the NUS National Conference which calls for it to be renamed the ‘Almost National Union of Students’ (ANUS), after Shadow Council refused to veto it.
The motion was first proposed by a Student Idea, which said that the rebrand was required “due to drop outs of many Students’ Unions from being members of the NUS”. 28 students voted on the proposal, and it passed with a 55% score.
A veto proposal was then brought to Shadow Council by NUS Delegate Jack Morewood, who claimed that it was “another of many troll Ideas” and that “it poses a risk to Exeter’s credibility at NUS Conference, and would be embarrassing for the Guild”.
However, with seven of the ten Councillors present, a vote to veto was split at 3-3 with one abstention. Julia Naud, the Guild Chair, used the casting vote to refuse to veto the Idea. As per the Guild website, it has now been “taken to the NUS Delegates to find a proposer”.
After the vote, one Shadow Councillor told Exeposé that they “think it’s a dangerous precedent to set for one delegate to repeatedly ask for Shadow Council to veto Ideas that they personally disagree with”, while another, who had voted to veto, added that “Shadow Council acts as a necessary check on the Ideas system – in this case, the need to protect Exeter’s position at Conference. I would, however, need a wider range of delegates to come forward in order to vote to veto again.”
“WE RESPECT THE DECISIONS OF COUNCIL AND LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING WHAT OUR ELECTED NUS DELEGATES BRING TO NATIONAL CONFERENCE”
This comes just a week after Shadow Council chose to veto another Student Idea calling for a motion for NUS National Conference to no-platform itself.
In a statement given to Exeposé, a spokesperson for the Students’ Guild said that: “Shadow Council is the Guild’s elected scrutiny body that holds elected officers and Guild Policy to account.
“Each Councillor has the right to veto a proposal brought to them and on this occasion they decided not to reject a Student Idea of renaming the NUS to ‘Almost National Union of Students (ANUS)’. In a separate meeting, the Councillors decided to veto a proposal for the NUS to no-platform itself. We respect the decisions of Council and look forward to seeing what our elected NUS Delegates bring to National Conference.”
The current motion comes after a wave of disaffiliations, mostly following the election of now former-President Malia Bouattia, with the most prominent being Loughborough Students’ Union. At that time, students in Exeter voted by a small margin to remain part of the NUS, after a campaign described by those involved as “toxic”.
