NUS No Platform Policy
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No Platform is a policy of the National Union of Students (NUS) of the United Kingdom. Like other No Platform policies it asserts that no one considered Racist or Fascist should be able to stand in any NUS election or participate in any NUS function. It was instituted in the 1990s to prevent British National Party candidates from standing in NUS elections. The NUS leadership stated that the reason for the policy was to prevent Lesbian and Gay people and people from ethnic minority backgrounds from not attending the NUS Annual Conference for the fear that they would be assaulted by BNP members.[citation needed]
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[edit] How the policy works
No Platform forbids any officer of NUS sharing a platform with a "fascist", which the NUS has interpreted to mean all public debate regardless of who is controlling the platform or whether a union officer is present. This means that it is forbidden for NUS Officers to attend events at universities where extremist organisations are present and argue with them. Union Officers and in theory ordinary union members can be thrown out of the NUS for breaching these rules. The group Unite Against Fascism maintains that the NUS is not the appropriate place for such a debate and that if union officers were to engage in debates with extremists this would legitimise their arguments.
[edit] Organisations Currently Subject to No Platform
[edit] Criticism of NUS No Platform Policy
At the moment NUS National Conference decides who should be deemed fascist or racist, however the NUS leadership want to give this power to a non-elected committee.[citation needed] Some have raised concerns that this could lead to No Platform being used by the NUS leadership to "no platform" organisations such as Respect in order to stifle opposition.[citation needed]
[edit] Opposition to the Policy
In 2003, a dispute broke out between the Keele University Students' Union and the affiliated Keele University England Society after the union used their No Platform policy to shut the society down during their Fresher's Fair launch. The student union reinstated the society a few days later, when their activities were found to be non-extremist. This led to a motion proposing the revocation of the Keele University Students' Union's No Platform policy, which was narrowly defeated.[citation needed]
In 2007 the University of East Anglia Students' Union resolved to officially oppose the NUS No Platform Policy and to mandate their representatives at the NUS Annual Conference to oppose that policy, to write a letter to NUS National President Gemma Tumelty opposing the policy, and decided to hold a referendum on the issue. The referendum question was 'Should UUEAS Support NUS No Platform policy?' The student body as a whole rejected No Platform by 74.5% 430 to 141 votes[citation needed]. Critics of the referendum have argued that a low turnout of 5% was unrepresentative[citation needed]. The Union considers a referendum to be valid if a quorum of 500 is reached. The UEA Students' Union stated that they believe:
That in order to discredit illiberal, extremist or racist ideologies it is necessary to openly confront these ideas and not merely pretend they do not exist. .. That ideologies based on the equal value of all human beings are more logical and will therefore win if directly counter posed with ideologies which believe in the superiority of a particular race or religion.[1]
In 2007 debate surfaced in the University of Oxford about the policy when British National Party leader Nick Griffin was scheduled to appear on the University's student radio station, Oxide Radio - at that time, the station did not have editorial independence from its parent company, OSSL, the commercial subsidiary of the Student Union. OUSU backed the NUS decision, but in 2008 the Oxford Union invited Nick Griffin along with controversial historial David Irving to speak. Members of the Student Union picketed the debate and some protesters broke into the Union chambers before being ejected by security.[1] Subsequently, Oxide Radio was granted editorial independence from OUSU.
Leeds University Union's newspaper, Leeds Student and its TV station, LSTV have both opposed the student union's No Platform policy. An article published in the paper featuring a long interview with the British National Party leader Nick Griffin was considered in breach of the policy. A subsequent interview was initially not allowed to be aired on LSTV, but was later aired, after protests were held. In both February 2007 and 2008, motions to abolish the LUU's No Platform policy were defeated by the union's council before reaching the referendum stage.
On May 14, 2007, a University of Bath student invited Nick Griffin to speak at a meeting on campus.[2] There were several attempts to prevent this from occurring, and due to the organisation of protests, the students union voted to oppose the university’s decision to allow Griffin to speak. The university, taking into consideration the threat of disruption that allowing Griffin to speak would cause during the summer exam period, decided to refuse permission for the event to take place.[3] This led the student union to hold a referendum to decide whether it should have a No Platform policy. On February 15, 2008, the results were announced — 158 people voted for the policy and 619 people voted against — and the policy was rejected. [4]
On March 19th 2008 the University of Warwick Union announced the result of its referendum on no platform policy. No Platform was defeated by 1020 votes to 954.[citation needed]
Some Unions such as Bilborough College Students' Union in Nottingham have attempted to bypass the policy. In an attempt to demonstrate that they believed the NUS no platform policy was an affront to free speech, Bilborough organised a debate between a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir and a member of the National Secular Society. Despite an attempt by some students to persuade the College Corporation to overturn the decision of the Union, the event went ahead. To prevent NUS from removing their NUS cards and therefore their right to represent their fellow students at NUS conference, the union executive did not inform NUS of the event. NUS eventually found out about the event though in order to prevent the debate around No Platform from surfacing they did not expel the Bilborough executive from the NUS.[citation needed]
[edit] Status of the Policy
The NUS, who remain dedicated to No Platform (as of 30/1/08) are including it as a policy in their governance review which is due to be voted upon at National Conference in Blackpool, 28-31 April 2008. At a recent EGM the membership of NUS voted overwhelmingly to include No Platform in the core constitution.[citation needed]
