Anyone reading the #NCAFC Twitter feed over the weekend will have got the impression that the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts conference in Liverpool descended into an uncontrollable orgy of bickering and sectarianism.

Of course the conference had its moments, and there were some lessons to be learned in terms of both individual behaviour and conference organisation, but on the whole, it was a positive experience and brought over one hundred activists together from across Britain and Ireland to discuss important issues in the fight against fees and cuts.

In fact many comments about the conference were made by those who had not attended, and seemed designed to cause unnecessary tension and antagonisms. It was the Twitterati who were most responsible.

@swiftnotswallow I’d say 60% of the NCAFC conference was mega-good and 40% was mega-bad #banthetrots

Agenda

In reality, most of the conference was very positive. It brought together lots of activists from a wide geographical spread, including a sizable delegation from Scotland, from different campaigns and from different student union and political activist backgrounds. Interesting workshops took place on a range of issues, looking in depth at H/E privatisation, democratising student unions, as well as a range of sessions on LGBTQ, Disabled, and BMS group liberation.

Where the agenda fell short was that there were no workshops, let alone plenary sessions, to discuss and debate how the student movement can go forward and relate to a potential wave of struggle in March, which could see public sector strike action as well as an NUS-backed ‘week of action’ against privatisation.

The conference agenda geared discussion too far away from the all-vital conversation about tactics that is needed to revive and rebuild the student movement in Britain and that can unify it in action.

This meant that the only discussion over what the campaign actually does over an important next few months took place during motions – with a one-for-one-against format with no amendments allowed from the floor that was always going to be messy.

It naturally resulted in more discussion taking place around the disagreements, rather than the huge amount that the conference could agree on – in short it magnified division whilst appearing to shrink levels of agreement.

That said, motions calling for the widest possible working class and anticuts mobilisations on 1st March were very well received, as well as the ‘Action for Education’ resolution from Mark Bergfeld and Sean Rillo Raczka. A call to ‘broaden out’ the slogans of the NCAFC to the growing number of unemployed youth who have been forced out of education also won a majority vote.

Argument

Despite what the social networks are saying, everything was actually fairly pleasant and well-meaning until we discussed some motions that were always going to be controversial.

One of these was a proposal for an NCAFC slate for NUS elections. It was proposed by, and called for a slate made up of activists from the outgoing NCAFC national committee including Workers Liberty, but none from other groupings.

This was clearly taken in bad faith by some groups such as Student Broad Left and the Socialist Workers Party who understandably saw the motion as a manoeuvre, given a breakdown of trust between the two groups and Workers Liberty after the June conference debacle. The motion also upset some outgoing members of the NC who had not been consulted about it beforehand.

Other controversy occurred as the conference needed to make a choice between continuing with a motions discussion on Sunday afternoon, or attending workshops due to an overrunning timetable and forwarding undiscussed motions to the incoming NC.

Interventions by Student Broad Left against the ‘disgraceful’ proposal to have some motions on racism and oppression discussed by the national committee, and a motion against war on Iran proposed by Counterfire that did not criticise the Islamic regime, did not help matters either. NCAFC is strongest when it is a united activist organisation, and weaker when it acts like an NUS faction and takes too many policy decisions on different topics – perhaps the conference would have worked better if it had focussed discussions more upon education issues and public sector cuts.

It was around this very difficult point in the meeting where the chairperson slightly lost control and some activists felt she was ignoring their raised hands and picking the same people to speak too often. Visibly upset and understandably resigning the position following some heckling, other activists were angered by what they considered to be poor conduct and oppressive behaviour towards the chair on the floor of the conference that violated a “safe space” policy.

Prospects for Unity

Losing the conference chair no doubt created a bad atmosphere in the room. But the conference did not erupt into chaos as some suggest.

It is equally not true that any bad feelings that did arise are completely down to the “Trot factions” – as some activists have opportunistically suggested.

In fact up until the June “Reinvigoration conference”, called in a way that alienated many activists in the campaign, particularly from London, the NCAFC had been an organisation and network that facilitated discussions between different organisations and pushed for the broadest possible unity in the form of student assemblies during the winter of 2010.

After that breakdown of trust, this conference was always going to be more difficult – but positively, the incoming NC election elected using an STV system did result in representatives of many different groups and individuals getting elected, which could be an encouraging prospect for re-uniting or at least better coordinating the campaigns around the country.

A Revolution motion calling for a conference to unify the movement in the summer was subject to an unfriendly amendment and summarily voted down, but only by a slim majority – showing that many activists in the movement would still like to see one strong united campaign to bring all students together against the Tories.

All-in-all NCAFC conference was a positive experience, and activists who were present for the whole weekend will likely recognise this, as the Twitter-talk dies down, and those creating antagonisms for their own ends– not just “the trots” – move on to other things. The rest of us will be busy preparing for a spring of struggle to defend our education. All out March 1st!

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