A motion to hold a referendum on continuing the Students’ Union’s membership was passed unanimously at a recent Union Executive meeting, a
The motion was brought by Welfare and Community Officer Hana Mougharbel and proposes the question: “Should the Students' Union continue to be affiliated to the National Union of Students?”
NUS UK membership costs the Student Union £30,700 annually, with an additional £7,620 fee for membership to the NUS charity.
NUS UK represents roughly 600 Students’ Unions and aims to work on student issues such as cost of living and to represent the student body in national campaigns.
According to discussions at the meeting, it would not affect membership to the charity which supports the Students’ Unions with resources and provides Students’ Union UCL with significant commercial benefits.
Affiliation with both offers a discounted fee which UCL would no longer be eligible for if the student body voted to leave NUS UK. With this factored in, leaving the NUS would save the Students’ Union roughly £23,000 per year according to Mougharbel.
While this is not a large section of total Students’ Union expenditure, during her proposal Mougharbel was keen to stress that it is ultimately student money.
She highlighted a few alternative ways in which the funds could be allocated, mentioning that the figure is roughly equal to the cost of emergency grants for the entire year.
Mougharbel said that, while in theory she agrees that the NUS is a "good concept… student communities believe it is not fulfilling its purpose in practice".
To support this claim, she raised an alleged incident at a recent NUS conference where NUS officers reportedly ignored questions from a Sabbatical Officer. While she confirmed there is no proof of this being a deliberate attempt to silence the speaker, she did report that music was turned up in the conference room at the time of the incident.
The Cheese Grater understands that NUS ineffectiveness is a central issue in the campaign to end membership; during the discussion, Mougharbel cited that no policy or motion was passed at the last NUS conference.
A Union source told The Cheese Grater that “it will take place in May with the exact date still to be determined. The reason for this being so late is due to staff capacity”.
However, many attendees were vehemently opposed to its being so late in the year, citing damage to turnout as a key issue.
Attendees argued an election in May means that many students will be off campus making it much harder to promote in-person campaigns.
This referendum is by no means unprecedented; in fact, NUS membership is supposed to be put to the student body every 3 years; this was indeed the case in 2017 and 2023 (with the 2020 vote missed).
In 2017 only 903 students voted so the referendum did not meet quorum, which is five percent of the student body.
In 2023, 2565 votes were cast, meeting the requirements. 1427 students voted to remain, 976 voted to leave, and there were 162 abstentions.
Dissatisfaction with the NUS is not isolated to UCL. Imperial and Birkbeck have been disaffiliated from the organisation for a substantial period despite being founding members, the University of Cambridge have already voted to disaffiliate, and KCL and LSE are both in the process of holding referendums.
Mougharbel claims that “the UCL Students’ Union has attempted to change the NUS from within”.
A Union spokesperson said: “Holding the referendum in term three gives the yes/no campaigns ample time to organise, recruit volunteers, and begin educating potential voters on the issues at hand. The final few weeks of term two are very busy, and it’s important the referendum campaigns are given space to be heard.”