Referendum To Be Held To Disaffiliate From NUS UK
Roxanna Brealey, Editor-in-Chief, History & Politics
Following the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on the 20th of November, a motion was passed declaring that a university-wide referendum would be held to decide whether SOAS should disaffiliate from the National Union of Students (NUS) UK. If the motion is subsequently ratified by the Board of Trustees, with which few problems are to be expected, a referendum will occur.
The National Union of Students is made up of two separate bodies, NUS UK and NUS Charity. The former is a political organisation that runs campaigns surrounding student issues such as: affordability, renting rights and graduate visas. The latter is a registered charity which provides trading services, subsidising goods sold by student unions.
The motion was put forth by Zaid Altikriti, the incumbent Co-President of Welfare and Liberation.
The motion was approved at the AGM without any issues and was passed by a significant majority of 91%.
Altikriti was very clear in his reasoning as to why disaffiliation was the right path to follow. His concerns were mainly related to the recent controversies NUS UK had been involved in. They have faced a lot of criticism surrounding a lack of representation for Muslim, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices and their lack of support for students who are facing disciplinary repercussions for their activism. Additionally, membership fees cost approximately £13,000 annually; if disaffiliation were to occur, those funds could be redirected back into the SU for students to utilise.
The motion was passed in relation to an ongoing campaign called #NotMyNUS, which is challenging NUS UK’s alleged ‘complicity in genocide and student repression on campus’. An open letter was published in July, signed by over 210 elected student officials, of which Altikriti was a signatory too. Eight demands were mentioned in the letter, including: demand for a ceasefire, recognising the situation as a genocide, divestment, and rescinding support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. This definition claims that it is anti-Semitic to name Israel as a ‘racist endeavour’. Also, providing better support for students’ right to protest and improved investigations regarding Islamophobia and anti-Black racism.
As a result of signing this open letter, NUS UK alerted multiple elected university officers that their invitation to the ‘Lead and Change’ Conference (July 2025) would be rescinded unless they removed their names. The reason being that the letter supposedly violated the NUS Code of Conduct. The conference was subsequently cancelled.
No similar communication was received by any elected officer at SOAS’s SU, as no one bought tickets to attend the conference.
It is expected that many SUs will follow a similar path, with Cambridge University Union just recently disaffiliating from NUS UK after a referendum was held.
In the likely case that a referendum is held, it will be interesting to see whether it receives much student participation or not. Whilst there is no official turnout figure available from the last 25/26 sabbatical election, it was seemingly defined by a lack of interest and student engagement.
