Less than half an hour after the winners of this year’s Leadership Race were announced, the next President of the Students’ Union was hurried into the Rare FM studio for his first media grilling live on air.
President-elect Ben Scanlan is no stranger to live radio, having been the guest host of an episode of the very same programme just over a month ago.
But before he had the chance to let his victory sink in, Scanlan found himself in the chair opposite, ready to face questions from this week’s host of Grater Insight, James Balloqui, and a live audience of Cheese Grater journalists behind him.
Scanlan began with a prepared statement. He started by thanking his supporters, saying: “If this campaign has revealed anything, it is that there are still students at UCL who care about the ideals of a Students’ Union.
“We find ourselves in the middle of a war over what university experience should be in this country.
“This is the starting shot in the war against the high-pressure, LinkedIn, internship culture that some want university life in the United Kingdom to be.
“I firmly believe that universities should be about having fun and learning life lessons through mistakes… I’ll keep fighting for your right to make mistakes if you keep fighting too.
“Let’s make student life great again.”
Can we afford to ‘Make UCL Cheap Again’?
One of the first questions fired at the new Union President had to do with his flagship policy to “make UCL cheap again” by slashing prices across the Union’s commercial outlets.
Asked how he intended to turn this into reality, he said: “I’m sure I’m about to have a lot of meetings with high functionaries within the Students’ Union telling me various things about what we can and can’t do.”
But he insisted that “the money is there”, adding: “It’s going to require possibly a fundamental change in the operations of the Students’ Union. But I’ve got a mandate… [and] I think we can get it done.
“We need to start viewing the bars and the cafes and the shops, not as a way of the Students’ Union making money off students, but actually [as] one of the key branches through which the Students’ Union offers support.
“The Students’ Union is a charity that’s supposed to ameliorate student life at UCL… I believe that the best way it can do that is by materially improving student life.”
We put it to the President-elect that a senior Union source said some tough choices would have to be made if his proposals to slash prices were to materialise.
Indeed, the Union bars – with the rare exception of the Institute – have failed to turn a profit in recent years, The Cheese Grater understands.
Asked whether students can expect cuts to Union services, Scanlan said “Yes”, but prefaced it by saying the cuts would only be made in areas that are not materially impacting students.
He added: “This is about directing money away from stuff that isn’t impacting students towards stuff that is impacting students in the most real, the most tangible way.”
The President-elect rejected claims that this was a short-term solution to the student cost of living crisis, adding: “I think it requires a bit of a fundamental realignment of commercial policy within the Students’ Union.”
From office politics…
Despite the title of President, the Union’s sabbatical leadership team operates with a flat team structure with six full-time officers, each with different ideas about how to change the Union and, crucially, how the money should be spent.
Asked how he would negotiate with the five other sabbs to make sure the cost of his proposals to slash prices would work alongside their pledges – many of which will see increased Union spending – Scanlan said: “There is a bit of a problem and I’m going to be so real with everybody. It could be a bit of an issue.
“In life, everyone has to make concessions… [but] I’m going to make as few concessions as I possibly can. I’m going to push everything I possibly can through.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And I have a massive will.”
He said he would get to know his fellow sabbs better but insisted he could be “very persuasive” when put in the room.
…to national politics
One of Scanlan’s key pledges is to “bring back advocacy” on the national level.
The Union is a founding member of the Russell Group Students’ Unions (RGSU) collective but continues to be affiliated with the scandal-ridden National Union of Students (NUS).
Asked how he would utilise these various platforms, he said: “I think [RGSU] is an alternative that I think already a lot of people in high places are taking a bit more seriously than the NUS.”
He said while many good universities are not part of Russell Group – the grouping of 24 elite universities in the UK – he saw RGSU to be a “good lobbying tool” over which UCL Union has greater direct influence.
On NUS affiliation, for which the Union pays an annual fee of over £30,000, he said: “Give me a year [and] I’ll try and fix it [the NUS] as much as we can. If people are still upset with the NUS, we’ll have a referendum.”
Asked how he would balance the Union’s statutory obligation to act only in their charitable objectives and student demands for greater Union support for causes such as divestment, boycotts, and sanctions in response to Israel’s war on Palestine, the President-elect said: “I think the Students’ Union’s response to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people is severely lacking. I think most students at this University will agree.”
While the Union has a responsibility under charity law to act only in the interests of “students as students”, Scanlan said: “The Union also has to bear in mind that it is a Union of the students, and it has to reflect the values of the students on aggregate in its own values.”
He said the primary responsibility of the Union should be to protect students who are being penalised and persecuted for their political advocacy.
“We can’t afford at this moment to have a Union that turns its back on student protesters”, he said.
