No Platform for Fascists ¡No pasarán! (SU Council)

SU Council.
Monday this week saw a very interesting SU Council. I put forward 2 motions to the Council to vote on and I am delighted that both of them passed!

We had "No Platform for Fascists" and a statement of support and solidarity from the SU with #Occupy Galway who I am very surprised I've not written a post here about yet. I think both of these are brilliant results and shows that the students here in NUIG are becoming more and more active in their attitudes to bettering society. It's great to see a student union taking a stance on things like this.

The motion is as follows:

That the the Students' Union and its officers be mandated to automatically oppose any invitation made to members of the listed organisations to speak at this university.

That SU Officers shall be prohibited from sharing a public platform with members of the listed organisations.

That organisations are able to be added and removed by ballot at SU council. Proposals will be submitted by class reps or executive officers.

The list of organisations under the No Platform Policy shall be reserved for organisations that are deemed to be fascist and/or racist by the SU council.

Organisations that currently fall under the No Platform policy are as follows.

BNP
Combat 18
Hizb ut-Tahrir
MPAC UK
MPAC Ireland
The National Front
Democratic Right Movement
MPAC Ireland
National Front parties from other EU countries and beyond
The Racial Volunteer Force
Blood and Honour
British Movement/British National Socialist Movement
Column 88.

What total win!
I'm delighted by this, obviously racism is something I have a slight problem with and I am really proud of this motion, I consider it a personal achievement :) After Trinity last month there is a very clear message being send out in Ireland that racism will simply not be tolerated in out universities.


I am working on a statement to send out to the media about occupy. Will post it up here when it's done. :)

There was also a vote on officer reports whether they should or should not be given.
It was decided that officers have the option to give a 2 min report. This is also flavoured of win, it's good that officers get to answer to the SU Council, I want to be accountable to people who voted for me, it's the least I can do.
This whole argument of emailling out officer reports just has no weight to it, I don't properly read half the emails I get, no one does. And at the end of the day nothing beats good old questions and answers from your reps and this should be encouraged.

End of month report, October

End of Month report                      October                               Will O’Brien Equality Officer

Successful from lobbying the City Council regarding the poor state of the pavements surrounding the University Campus, particularly Distillery road.
I received a letter from the Senior Engineer saying that the council has made an application to the Department of Transport for funding to undertake an “overall improvement project on Distillery road”. The decision for funding will be made in spring of next year.
Between now and then I will be lobbying the Department of Transport to further push the case to maximise access to the university via public infrastructure.

Equality week. Many events throughout the week, very well received. Full event schedule was available at the time.
Slutwalk – Huge media attention and money raised.
Natty Wailler gig and Jungle Boogie.  Bringing music onto campus. Also working with DJ soc and Rock to get more student/socs events on campus/ in College Bar.

I attended FEE national conference and formulated protest plan to compliment the USI’s strategy.
Organising an open education forum for students to come and give their opinions on fees and possible strategies to resist them.
Worked on increasing transparency within the SU when it comes to issues regarding USI our national representative union.

I took part in a well coordinated campaign with students from TCD and elsewhere to have an invitation to Nick Griffin to speak at TCD on the issue of immigration. Nick Griffin is head of the BNP, a far right extremist party with a long history of racially motivated violence and a clear racist agenda.
Through a massive letter writing campaign and gaining the support of many influential groups and individuals we managed to get the event cancelled, thus keepings racism out of Irish universities.
A bus was organised for NUIG students to travel up to TCD to protest by thankfully wasn’t needed.

I have been working on a no platform policy for the SU to be put to class reps with regards to far right groups who practice the politics of hate, e.g. BNP, DRM, national fronts etc.
This will allow no SU officer from engaging gin public debate with a group deemed racist or fascist by the SU Council. This will also insist that the Exec oppose any moves by societies or individuals from inviting people from fascist or racist organisations to speak at the college.

I have also been taking part in the #Occupy protests in both Dublin and Galway on a regular basis and am currently working on a statement of solidarity with the movement from the SU.

I formed part of the committee responsible for organising the 1 day festival to replace RAG week.
I hope to use all of my experience, contacts and resources to ensure that this will be the best event to take place in NUIG ever.
This is a huge commitment and project and I will have much more details in next month’s report.

I have lobbied hard in favour of SU officers having to give reports on their work at class reps council.
In the interest of democratic transparency and accountability I think that officers engaging with students is absolutely essential. I want to be held to account for everything I do and welcome criticism and suggestions so that I may represent the students of NUIG to the absolute best of my ability.  This is only possible through regular engagement with class reps and various officer have no opportunity to do this currently.

Have to the best of my ability ensured that class reps council meeting ballots are executed strictly according to the SU constitution where various other officers have attempted to do otherwise.
The SU constitution is very important and must be adhered to especially during democratic processes and cannot be allowed to be subverted for the sake of simplifying balloting.

Attended USI activist training.
At this weekend I approached every USI officer and spoke to them about changing their public stance on the registration fee in the national campaign.
The proposed slogan for their protests this year is “freeze the fees, save the grant”.
I do not believe this is representative of students as many are being forced into serious financial difficulty because of the rises of the fee in the past few years.
In demanding a freeze in the fee, the USI were accepting the level it is at currently which is already acting as a barrier to education for those from working class families.
The USI should be campaigning for a reduction in the reg fee as this is more representative of students and in the interest of students. The current stance clearly indicates that USI are supporting a €2000 reg fee which is not acceptable.
Since speaking in person to the USI officers in Dublin and emailing them repeatedly the campaign slogan has since been changed to “Stop the fees, save the grant”.
I think this is much more representative of the student body as a whole and happy that USI took on my suggestions.