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.