The National Union of Students (NUS) is a confederation of student unions in the United Kingdom. Around 600 student unions are affiliated, accounting for more than 95% of all higher and further education unions in the UK. Although the National Union of Students is the central organisation for all affiliated unions in the UK, there are also the devolved national sub-bodies NUS Scotland in Scotland, NUS Wales (UCM Cymru) in Wales and NUS-USI in Northern Ireland (the latter being co-administered by the Union of Students in Ireland).
NUS is a member of the European Students' Union.
Membership
Constituent membership is granted to students' unions by National Conference or National Executive Council by a two-thirds majority vote Individual membership is granted automatically to members of students' unions with constituent membership, sabbatical officers of constituent members, members of the National Executive Council and sabbatical conveners of NUS Areas Associate membership is granted by a two-thirds majority vote of National Executive Council to: Student Organisations in Association – any national student organisations Partner Organisations in Association - non-student organisations which sympathise with the NUS Individuals in Association – any individual who supports the objects of the NUS NUS Areas - geographically-defined associations of students' unions Honorary membership is granted by National Conference to "any person or organisation as it sees fit" Of these types of membership, only constituent members may vote on or submit policy proposals to the National Conference. Constituent members and associate members are required to pay a subscription fee as a condition of their membership.
History
Origins and early history
The NUS was formed on 10 February 1922 at a meeting held at the University of London. At this meeting, the Inter-Varsity Association and the International Students Bureau (which organised student travel and had been lobbying for a national body) agreed to merge.
Founding members included the unions of University of Birmingham, Birkbeck, University of London, London School of Economics, Imperial College (who first left in 1923 and have subsequently rejoined and left three times, the last time being in June 2008), King's College London (who supplied the first President, Sir Ivison Macadam) and the University of Bristol.
Politicisation and Broad Left, 1968–1982
In the aftermath of the Second World War and with the onset of the Cold War, the National Union of Students had adopted a "no politics" clause in its charter in an attempt to distance itself from its 1930s flirtations with communism. During the 1950s, it had thus concerned itself with collective bargaining over student grants, teaching salaries and education. This apolitical consensus was challenged in concert with the international protests of 1968 and as the Cold War intensified. At the 1969 NUS conference, then president Trevor Fisk came up against Jack Straw (then close to Bert Ramelson of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but much later Foreign Secretary under the New Labour government of Tony Blair) over the issue. Straw supported student protests against US military involvement in the Vietnam War, while Fisk advocated neutrality; Straw's side won and the "no politics" clause was removed.
A new era began for the NUS, where political agitation and protest became institutionalized. Straw was followed up as president by Digby Jacks, also representing the Radical Student Alliance (formed in 1966 by Fergus Nicholson) and a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. According to contemporary British government reports, the RSA was connected to the Trotskyist-led Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and had close links with the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (organising a protest following Rudi Dutschke's shooting). The government report stated "If they have an ideological bible it consists of the work of Professor Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man." In line with the Marcusian viewpoint of championing politicised minority groups, throughout the 1970s, the NUS came to support what it called "liberation campaigns", including; homosexual rights (the first national group to do so in 1973), radical feminism and black nationalism. At the same time, the NUS adopted a No Platform policy; a concept pioneered by the IMG in 1972; to stifle the campus organisation and speech of nationalistic British groups that it declared to be "racist or fascist". At the time, this was aimed at the National Front and the Monday Club (a faction in the Federation of Conservative Students).