[IN THE Executive elections at the National Union…]

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IN THE Executive elections at the National Union of Students conference before Easter, Tommy Shepherd, previously presumed darling of the NUS soft left, only scraped in by the skin of his teeth. Three votes separated him from Jan Mellor of the Left Alliance (a bloc of the Communist Party, Liberals, and supporters) for Deputy President Education.

Although the National Organisation of Labour : Students (NOLS) have not definitively stamped their mark on NUS since winning the leadership from the Left Alliance, or developed: a clear labour movement orientation, they have certainly had a more campaigning approach - away from the total concentration on the committee room that the Left Alliance leadership gave NUS, towards more local and national activity by students themselves.

Although dreadfully inadequate, a NOLS leadership is substantially better than the Left Alliance.

Tommy was almost defeated because of the floor work of NOLS. Its decision to back a Left Alliance candidate for national secretary against a popular Socialist Student Alliance candidate meant that NOLS spent a lot of time whipping their delegates and rebuilding the credibility of the Left Alliance. It's not surprising, then, that there was little canvassing done for Tommy, nor that the Left Alliance have found a space again in NUS. NOLS gave them back the credibility they had lost.

Despite the Socialist Student Alliance getting two people elected to the Executive, showing there is still support for an independent far left group inside NUS, it was clear from the whole conference that the far left is now very weak in the union.

Socialist students should now get together and form a united organisation. Such an organisation would be firmly rooted inside NOLS, committed to developing its labour movement links, fighting for political control, but we should be flexible about forms of organisation.

There would be little point in tying ourselves to the NOLS line when there is still clearly the potential for electing far left candidates and carrying out left wing campaigns in the colleges.

It would be equally pointless to deny ourselves possible openings in colleges by remaining trapped inside a right wing Labour Club. In these colleges an independent presence, perhaps organised as a left caucus of NOLS, could be organised, always with the intention of winning control of the Labour Club, but building itself through its own activities.

We need a united group to fight for the leadership of NOLS which will not be bound by NOLS practices. We need to be organised inside NOLS and have our own profile outside it until the time when we control it.