Using our Students Ideas process 5334 students have expressed their opinion on the idea that “The Guild should disaffiliate from the NUS” at the end of the process 42% of students strongly disagreed with the idea, with a further 8.4% students disagreeing with the motion.

Students’ Guild President, and leader of the Stay Campaign, Laura-Jane Tiley said:

“We firmly believe that the interests of Exeter Students are best served by being part of the NUS and it is great that we have been able to convince a majority of students voting that this is the case. Like the leave campaign we do believe that the NUS needs to change, but that the best way of doing this is to remain a part of the organisation.”

Laura-Jane continued:

“Although the NUS National Conference in Brighton highlighted some of the problems with the NUS, it is important to recognise that this vote was initiated by students before the conference ignited the wider debate that has seen Lincoln already choose to disaffiliate”

The turnout demonstrates the strength of feeling on campus about the NUS and the Students’ Guild is committed to ensuring that the value of our membership in the NUS is demonstrated to our members. In the next year we will be:

Relentless in setting forward what the students in Exeter want from the NUS, including submitting motions to NUS on many of the points that Exiter have made

Using our democratic processes to ensure that the process for Exeter students to submit motions to NUS National Conference is clear and accessible

Work to ensure the delegates we send to NUS conference are representative of the Exeter student body, and have a clear mandate from our membership.

Asking NEC members to campus on a more regular basis for Q&A events to keep the student body informed of what the NUS is doing to represent their interests nationally.

Commenting on the result, Steve Hawkins, leader of the Exiter campaign and third year Philosophy and Social Economy student commented:

“We are of course enormously disappointed with this result, but are proud that this referendum has generated the highest turn out of any student referendum in Guild history. Furthermore, with more than 2,000 students voting to leave NUS, it is absolutely clear that huge swathes of students are fed up with the organisation and the way it is operating. There is a clear dissatisfaction with the status quo and this must be addressed by NUS next year both at its conference and in the upcoming democratic review.”

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