The National Union of Students has elected its first black female Muslim president, after a tense contest in which Malia Bouattia unseated incumbent Megan Dunn.

Bouattia, a leftwing former University of Birmingham student who has been the union’s black students’ officer for the past two years, stood on a radical grassroots platform opposing the government’s anti-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, and pledging to reignite the traditions of NUS activism.

Speaking to the Guardian after her victory, Bouattia said her victory was empowering. “Running against an incumbent is always tough. I believe it has only happened before once in the NUS’s history,” she said. “It feels like a really powerful statement, especially to be the first black woman, the first woman of colour in the post.”

The new president is a controversial figure among many students, coming to prominence in the national press after speaking against an NUS motion “to condemn the IS and support Kurdish forces fighting against it, while expressing no confidence or trust in the US military intervention”.

Megan Dunn was unseated as president in the NUS election after one year in the role. Photograph: handout

The motion failed to pass and Bouattia said she had objected to the wording, issuing her own statement expressing solidarity with the Kurds against Islamic State and condemning the group’s “brutal actions”.

“We recognise that condemnation of Isis appears to have become a justification for war and blatant Islamophobia,” she said at the time. “This rhetoric exacerbates the issue at hand and in essence is a further attack on those we aim to defend.”

The NUS’s failure to pass the motion condemning Isis was splashed across the national media, with the Sun leading on the headline “Looniversity”.

Bouattia said she hoped to put past controversies behind her as president, but said she believed the manner in which she was criticised in her previous role had galvanised support for her bid for the presidency.

“Taking on this job, fighting injustice, it is never going to be popular with everyone,” she said. “When I felt attacked, people rallied around me, there was an incredible amount of encouragement as well, particularly from black students. The NUS now has its most diverse executive.”

In her election speech, Bouattia spoke of being forced to flee the civil war in Algeria as a seven-year-old girl, after she and her classmates came under a hail of gunfire at their primary school and her father was targeted by a bomb at his lecture theatre.

Malia Bouattia’s NUS president speech.

“It wasn’t the bombs and the bullets, it was the fear for our education that drove them to leave everything behind,” she told the NUS conference in Brighton. “They taught me that education is key to liberation, that it would give me the power to change the world.”



Bouattia said she wanted the student movement to go beyond student issues, to address government cuts and the refugee crisis. “This conference is not about NUS, this conference has to be about our society, and the role of our movement within it,” she said. “David Cameron may not like me or our movement but when we’re strong he’s forced to listen.”

During the election campaign, more than 50 heads of Jewish societies at universities across the country wrote an open letter to Bouattia, a committed anti-Zionist activist, asking her to clarify her position on antisemitism, including comments in an article where she described the University of Birmingham – with its large Jewish society – as being “something of a Zionist outpost in British higher education”.

In her reply, Bouattia denied she had ever had issues with Jewish societies on campus. “I celebrate the ability of people and students of all backgrounds to get together and express their backgrounds and faith openly and positively, and will continue to do so,” she wrote.

Bouattia said she had criticised what she described as the influence of one pro-Israel thinktank, the Henry Jackson Society, but added: “In no way did I – or would I – link these positions to Jewish people, but to a particular (non-Jewish) organisation.”

I received an open letter from Jewish students with questions & concerns about my #NUSNC16 campaign. My response: pic.twitter.com/SgerKRSuLl — Malia Bouattia (@MaliaBouattia) April 14, 2016

In her conference speech, Bouattia denied she was the person depicted in media reports. “I know many of you will have seen my name dragged through the mud by rightwing media, and might think I am a terrorist and my politics driven by hate,” she said.



“How wrong that is. I know too well the price of terrorism, the consequences of violence and oppression. I saw a country ripped apart by terror and was forced into exile.

“I know too well the damage done by racism and persecution, I’ve faced it every day. And I will continue to fight it in all its forms.”

The Union of Jewish Students (UJS) released a statement after Bouattia’s election, saying it hoped the relationship with her would be positive, but that many Jewish students remained concerned.

“There will, however, still be many Jewish students who have not been satisfied with Malia’s response so far to the concerns raised by Jewish students over the last few weeks,” it said. “Now, knowing the result of the election, these questions still need to be answered.”

Bouattia told the Guardian she hoped to meet her critics in the coming weeks. “I am always focused now on how to move forward, to mobilise students,” she said. “One of the most important steps is to meet with everyone, to talk about these concerns, to heal the divisions and take on the issues, to build a strong and transformative union.”

Both the UJS and Bouattia supported a motion passed at the conference earlier on Wednesday morning, pledging to do more to tackle antisemitism on campus.



Wes Streeting, the Labour MP and former NUS president, also expressed concerns that Bouattia’s radical leftwing politics would hinder the influence of the union. “I struggle to see how she and now the majority of the NUS executive can reasonably claim to represent mainstream students across the country,” he said.

“It is a gift to the Conservatives which allows them to further marginalise student opinion when there is a real need to fight on issues like interest on student loans and cuts to bursaries. NUS has really hit the rocks.”

A group of students at the University of Cambridge have already submitted a motion to hold a referendum to disaffiliate their students’ union with the NUS, on the back of Bouattia’s election.

“Cambridge students should be given a chance to decide whether or not to remain part of the increasingly toxic culture and management of the NUS,” student Jack May said.