Death by paperwork
UCL military supporters denied referendum in bureaucratic wars
Opponents of the military ban passed at UCL Union’s AGM last term have given up their campaign after their calls for a referendum on the issue were quashed.
The union’s governance committee dismissed a call by the union’s executive committee for a campus-wide ballot on whether the military, including the Officer Training Corps, should be allowed on union premises.
The ban’s opponents now say they will wait until the next academic year before trying to overturn the ban, adding that exam season means their chances of a successful campaign are now almost zero.
UCL Union’s governance committee, chaired by controversial General Secretary Samantha Godwin, must give the go-ahead for a referendum. It decided that procedures for calling one had not been followed correctly, and so blocked the move.
The basis for the ruling was that executive committee could not make the decision to call a referendum because there were not enough sabbatical officers present. Hunkin was not counted as a sabbatical officer, as he is only acting Finance and Administration (F&A) officer.
He has called this move “sneaky”, as Godwin had argued that he should be treated as a sabbatical officer in a no confidence attempt earlier this term.
He added: “My view is that it’s been blocked because don’t want to happen. They’re afraid to let students express their views, because they thought they’d lose. I just feel that if students got to decide and voted against, fine, at least the student body had a chance to express its opinion, but they’ve deprived people of their voice.”
Godwin told London Student: “Referendums are regulated by Governance Committee and can be called by ordinary members collecting signatures or by a meeting of exec or council.
“[Acting F&Aofficer] Jim Hunkin tried to do it with several executives after the official executive meeting had closed but this violated the Union’s rules so it was considered void by Governance Committee.”
She added: “Any member of the union is still free to call a referendum if they
collect signatures for it.”
But anti-ban activists say that getting together a petition of 800 students in exam season is unrealistic, and blame this bureaucratic manoeuvring for their campaign stalling.
Mandy Smith, heading the anti-ban campaign said: “We’re not doing anything. Carrying things on was actively pissing people off - the only place to find 800 people at the moment would be in the library - and it was hard to explain, because people had heard the referendum had gone through but then that it had been overturned.
“People didn’t understand that it had happened on a technicality, and so thought that we must be in the minority, which we’re not.
“There was a lot of momentum at the beginning, maybe it was a mistake not calling an AGM at the time, and now it’s the end of the term and it’s too late.
“We’ve all got exams, and it was too much of a risk to have to run two campaigns, first to even call a referendum and then on the actual issue itself.”
The row comes at the end of a year in which UCL Union has descended into playground bickering and cloak and dagger politics.
Hunkin branded Godwin “a hamster, a mediocrity and a political pigmy” and threatened to throw her out of the window during a meeting.
Godwin’s supporters say that she has been unfairly personally victimised, with disciplinary proceedings started against her beginning following the AGM, to be later dropped for not having followed the correct procedures.
A video of her speaking posted on YouTube has been besieged by negative comments, with one poster saying: “she has neither an ounce of charisma or persuasion”.
Meanwhile, Hunkin claims that a (now dropped) motion of no confidence in him breached the union’s equal opportunities policy by making reference to his Conservative political affiliations. Godwin has called him “extraordinarily belligerent and arrogant.”
Before the original call for a referendum at UCLU’s executive committee, Education and Welfare officer Andy Fernando received an anonymous email threatening that pro-ban union officers would block his Honorary Life Membership if he voted in favour.
Smith said that her group might try and overturn the ban via a motion to a union council or general meeting at the beginning of the next academic year. She said she was disappointed in the way things had been handled.
“If a referendum goes to students then they either agree or they don’t, but at least you know. I don’t see what the problem is.”
The executive committee’s calls for a referendum on NUS affiliation were also rejected as having not followed correct procedure.
The sentence “with disciplinary proceedings started against her beginning following the AGM, to be later dropped for not having followed the correct procedures.” grossly misrepresents and distorts the reasons why the ’suspension’ was overturned.
The disciplinary proceedings weren’t overturned for having failed to follow correct procedures, they were overturned for being both without merit and an unlawful and politically motivated abuse of the system to persecute an officer who maintained the confidence of UCL Union Council. These reasons are obvious from the motion that UCL Union Council used to void the procedures, the motion’s ‘Union Believes’ section reads:
“This Union Believes.
1. That the “suspension” of Samantha Godwin as General Secretary was beyond the powers of the sabbatical officers as it was not in compliance with the standing orders and policy on disciplinaries, and improper conduct on their part as it clearly served a political utility whether intentional or not. That the sabbatical officers moreover have no power to interpret the standing orders with regard to disciplinary procedures as this is reserved for the Chair of Governance Committee and the standing orders do not provide for replacing the chair of a standing committee.
2. That by publicizing in an all student email on Thursday March 13 that the sabbaticals have “after investigating complaints” taken the decision to “suspend” the General Secretary their public comment inferred the guilt of the General Secretary and thereby potentially prejudices any independent inquiry into her conduct. This claim was made despite the absence of any substantial “investigation” into the “complaints” and therefore not only potentially prejudicial but libelous.
3. That any findings of with regard to the veracity of the “charges” subsequently issued to the General Secretary (after having been withheld or non-existent in violation of standing orders) are irrelevant since none of the “charges” are of behaviour that might be subject to a disciplinary panel under Union Policy.
4. That any complaints against the General Secretary with regard to her job performance may only be legitimately addressed through no confidence or censure motions. That these legitimate means were not attempted because the complaintents doubted that they could succeed.”
Which can be found here:
http://www.uclunion.org/general/downloads/notices/emergency-motion-for-council-18.03.08.pdf
Council passed the above motion with an overwhelming 22 to 7 majority in a secret ballot. The resolution goes on to mandate that the sabbatical officers “collectively to issue a public apology to Samantha Godwin” and states that “That the “disciplinary procedure” has been abused.”
It is clear from the motion that the disciplinary action was overturned not on some minor procedural grounds but because the overwhelming majority of the Union’s governing body decided that 1. the sabbatical officers had utterly no case against Godwin because they hadn’t even found anything to accuse her of (let alone provide any evidence to support such accusations) that could warrant disciplinary action 2. the action was in essence an attempt to defy the Union’s general meeting: by temporarily removing Godwin as Governance Committee Chair, Hunkin and the other sabbatical officers used the committee to unlawfully ’suspend’ the results of the General Meeting (as described in the motion) and this was itself the principle and obvious motive for attacking Godwin.
Why London Student seems keen to misrepresent the nature of this matter as if to play down how serious it was essentially burying the real story, that sabbatical officers basically staging a public coup against their student union, while it otherwise relishes portraying hardly newsworthy items as if they’re scandal (does anyone actually care if two students dislike each other), is obscure to me.
Oh great. I drop by to check out the reborn LS website, only to be greeted with more tedious waffle from Godwhinge. Brilliant.
Reading the parts of the motion you’ve posted here (an experience about as riveting as counting the commas in War and Peace) it’s clear that the issues were essentially the failure to follow proper procedure. The movers of the motion clearly extrapolated political intent from these failures, but London Student was entirely within its rights to refer to the procedural problems in its article.
But that’s beside the point. The real point here is that yet again, you’re going around waging your utterly pointless war on anyone you think might be bothering to disagree with you, and pissing everyone off in the process.
I was actually quite enthusiastic when the Left took control of UCL Union back in the autumn - I still remember all too clearly the irredeemable right wing morons I had to deal with in my time at London Student (yes Lucy Gould, I mean you). I thought that you and your allies would bring a breath of fresh air to the place, make it relevant to students, and make it stand up for their interests instead of kowtowing to college management and spending stupid money on useless websites.
How wrong I was.
You could have used your allies’ strength on council - for they all listened to you - for so many useful things, which would have won you genuine support amongst a broad layer of students.
You could have taken a meaningful stand against the UCL city academy.
You could have fought the increasing outsourcing at UCL, maybe compiled research on the rotten service at the Scolarest Refectory.
You could have built meaningful campaigns on issues such as student accommodation and fees.
You could even have tried to change the ludicrous UCLU restrictions on club and society publicity, which would have won you the respect and trust of people who perhaps don’t immediately identify with the Left.
But no.
Instead, you spent all year playing bureaucratic games against bureaucratic opponents - a kind of merging of the pigs and the farmers reminiscent of the end of Orwell’s Animal Farm. Secret meetings to work out who would call quorum when. Which motion would be positioned where. Which supporters would be bussed into which meetings. You reduced the union to the very kind of ineffective farce your enemies wanted themselves.
And you know what? You weren’t achieving a single thing of note, but as you (and your opponents, who are by and large no better than you and in some cases worse) dragged the governance farce on and on, you were playing by the rules.
But when your opponents tried the same trick on you - suddenly, they were evil. Suddenly, they were anti-democratic. Suddenly, they were the devil incarnate executing a vast right wing conspiracy. They did what you did, but they weren’t on your side - and you hated it.
And then, worse of all, you knifed London Student in the back, in public. The article LS published on the OTC vote was about the only balanced account of the issue that I saw anywhere. But because it didn’t repeat every last letter of your propaganda, you decided to tell everyone you had been misreported. You hadn’t. It was all a lie.
Sam, I’ve been on the demos, I’ve held the placards, I’ve watched the police beat up kids for daring to speak out. And I can say that you are the worst kind of left winger - the left winger who is so arrogant, so bureaucratic, and so vindictive that you scare everyone else away from every other left winger they might encounter. The left winger who discredits the Left.
And you discredit internationalism. When, as a unionist, you pursue world issues while casually ignoring the bread-and-butter matters that students notice on a daily basis, you play right into the hands of those who would ban SUs from issues such as war. That’s the most dangerous thing of all.
Apologies if you’re not in fact Sam - it’s hard when people hide behind pseudonyms. But I’ve had all I can take of this kind of drivel.
Viva la revolution, or whatever you’re calling it.