Q: Should I stay or should I go now?

A: The choice is yours. After one year of NUS membership, the Union has called for another referendum.

Last week, Imperial College Union (ICU) confirmed that a referendum on NUS (National Union of Students) membership will take place at the end of this term. The decision was confirmed after ICU Council voted almost unanimously for the referendum, with 24 committee members voting yes, one voting no, and the final person abstaining.

The referendum has been penciled in for the last two weeks of term, taking place from 17th to 23rd June. The entire student body is eligible to vote and the question posed to them will be: “Should Imperial College Union disaffiliate from the NUS?” to which they must vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

The last referendum was called only 18 months ago. At that time students were asked to consider if the Union should join the NUS or not. A slight majority of 53% favoured rejoining, leading to ICU reaffiliating for the fourth time in its long and protracted history with the NUS. But after a year of NUS membership fraught with farcical conferences and few tangible benefits to the main student populace, ICU has decided that spending £44,000 per year on membership is a waste of money.

Calls for a referendum began circulating soon after April’s NUS Annual Conference 2008. Major reforms that the NUS had been striving for throughout this academic year were met with even fiercer opposition at the conference than before, leading to their rejection, much to ICU’s distress.

Ultimately, the prospect of undergoing another year of fruitless attempts at reformation has triggered this year’s referendum. The Union is now pressing to leave the NUS before the end of term, otherwise it will have to shell out another £44,000 for a further year of affiliation.

ICU has been criticised for its timing of the referendum by last year’s President, John Collins, who told Felix that although he understands the “rationale” behind the review, he doesn’t “think the timing of the vote is particularly fair.”

Indeed, the timing of the voting period is key to this year’s referendum. 15% of the student body (approximately 1,800) is required to vote for the referendum to be valid, but with many students still undergoing exams, there are fears within the Union that the minimum number of voters might not be obtained, regardless of the overall result. Mr Collins is quick to point this out stating that: “Voter turnout in the summer term has historically been very poor so I would be surprised if more than a few hundred students vote.”

To put the situation in context, 1,800 votes is on a par with the very high turnout in last term’s Sabbatical elections, however, the target was easily surpassed in the previous NUS referendum during Autumn 2006 when over 4,000 students voted.

This year’s Sabbatical Officers have a drastically different stance on the NUS compared to their counterparts of last year. Deputy President Education & Welfare (DPEW), Kirsty Patterson, will be fronting the disaffiliation campaign, aided by current President, Steve Brown, who led last year’s anti-NUS campaign and is famed for slating the institution as a “comedy sideshow.”

Both of their predecessors led the pro-NUS party to victory during the last referendum, however, this year’s team is still in the embryonic stages of development; the pro-NUS group has only just recently appointed a campaign leader and is currently in the process of expanding its team. Once again, Felix will be teaming-up with Imperial College news website Live! (live.cgcu.net) over the coming weeks to bring you discussion about the NUS, what it provides students with, and arguments for and against disafilliation from both campaign teams. In issue 1,407, we will be collating everyone’s views in time for the start of voting.

Felix reiterates what it said last year on the subject of the NUS: please think carefully about the ramifications that disaffiliation may have upon the Union before voting in June, and that such a decision should not be made lightly.