ENGAGE - ARCHIVE

In today’s Financial Times, Sue Blackwell says ‘I think a stitch-up is quite likely. It looks like the meeting is going to be packed with people who never usually come to conference, because of the campaign that has been waged against us.’

The pro-boycott AUT members are admitting defeat, but blaming their defeat on a sinister campaign to ‘pack’ the special Council.

But they are wrong about both: despite David’s optimism here and here it’s not yet clear that they will be defeated, and it’s their account of the Special Council on Thursday that is sinister.

This much is true: there will be quite a few new representative council members at Friends Meeting House. Who are these people? They are members of the AUT, angry about the decisions taken in Blackpool, elected by local meetings or put onto delegations under rule 9.5.1, and in most cases, mandated to go to Friends Meeting House to vote down this policy. The membership of the AUT opposes this policy by a big majority. There have been some very big meetings in the last week or two, across the country. Some slightly sleepy branches of the AUT, that didn’t send a full delegation to Eastbourne, have been fully revived by an angry membership. Those branches will send a full delegation to the special conference, with a simple mandate: to vote down all boycott decisions. The consequence of all this is that the Special conference will be much more representative of the membership than Eastbourne. That’s a good thing.

But Sue Blackwell doesn’t agree. She thinks it is somehow illegitimate that ‘people who never usually come to conference’ will ‘pack’ the meeting. This, it seems, is a ‘stitch-up.’ Clearly, decision-making in the AUT should be left to those stalwarts who pass the activist test. For Sue Blackwell, small meetings are better than big ones: unrepresentative meetings are better than representative ones, and the last thing she wants is for a whole lot of fresh faces to turn up at Council, concerned about the direction their union has taken and determined to reverse it.

All through this campaign, our message has been simple: to AUT members we have said: get a local meeting, argue for overturning the boycott, and make sure you are fully represented at the special council. We’ve been critical of those local associations that have resisted calls for full local meetings, whether or not those LAs are formally against the boycott. We’ve pressed for mandating decisions, and agreed – in advance – that we will abide by them. We’ve had confidence in, and respect for, the good sense of ordinary members of the AUT. Our message has been simple, clear and democratic.

Early on, when drafting the call for a Special Council, a more expereiecned AUT member advised me to call a Special Council ‘to overturn the boycotts of Haifa and Bar-Ilan Universities’ But we didn’t want to pre-empt the decision, so instead, perhaps naively, we called for ‘a full debate’ not knowing in advance how that debate would go, and concerned about the risk that there would be proposals – perhaps successful – for a wider boycott. Nevertheless, we pressed on, knowing that it was better to argue these things out. So the boycotters now have a full day, debating the issue that they care so much about, with the eyes of the world watching, with AUT members listening. It’s a shame that they haven’t managed to get their full programme onto the order paper, but those inconvenient AUT members seem to have got in the way.

We’ve tried to open out a space for debate, and we’ve argued, in that space, for opposition to the boycott, to the occupation and to anti-Semitism. As for being a well-organised campaign, we’ll take the compliment. But look at the resolution booklet. The well-organised campaign couldn’t decide whether it wanted to repeal (Cambridge) rescind (Strathclyde, Keele) withdraw and overturn (Reading) revoke (Goldsmiths) oppose (Open, Kingston, Birmingham and Reading again) set aside (Southampton) or reject (Warwick) the boycott resolutions. The well-organised campaign couldn’t make its mind up: the membership of the AUT could: it wanted to get rid of the boycott policy. On Thursday, we’ll probably do all of these things, not because of a stitch up, but because the membership of the AUT overwhelmingly rejects the boycott.

Probably. But as Engage’s chief number cruncher, I’m not yet sure. The resolution booklet and the votes across the country indicate a substantial majority against the boycott. But we can’t be sure that this will be properly represented at Special Council, because we can’t trust some representative members of council to vote according to the policy of their local associations. The boycott could still be upheld, because of this, and we have little chance of enforcing mandates on the day: we can only remove representative council members after they have broken their mandates. But by then the damage – irreparable damage to the AUT - could have been done.

We know this is a real problem. Birmingham AUT has issued a press release in which Sue Blackwell announces her intention to vote for the boycott resolutions. She argues that the Birmingham meeting voted for both pro and anti-boycott resolutions. Now, this isn’t strictly true: Birmingham voted for a resolution 13 that said ‘This association opposes a policy of boycotting any university in Israel.’ It also voted for a resolution 29 that says that ‘academic boycotts of Israeli universities are a legitimate form of peaceful protest.’ These two resolutions are compatible. It’s perfectly straightforward to think that something is a legitimate form of protest, but at the same time be opposed to doing it. It’s not my view, but it is a consistent one, and it’s not a pro-boycott view.

Birmingham AUT voted down, defeated,

1) a resolution calling for a boycott of Ariel College

2) a resolution calling for a boycott of Haifa University

Let’s try that again. Birmingham AUT voted down, defeated, rejected

1) a resolution calling for a boycott of Ariel College

2) a resolution calling for a boycott of Haifa University

Yet one of the Birmingham representative members of council announces in advance her intention to go to the Special Council and vote for these boycotts.

It was people breaking the policy of their local associations that got us into this position in the first place. There is an unhealthy elitism in some parts of the AUT – a feeling that representatives ought not to represent, but that activists have somehow earned the right to take decisions against the views of the membership. Unless that view is rejected, we could still be in trouble on Thursday.

So here, again, is what you need to do. Every member of the AUT has the right to attend Council as an observer. We need observers. Even if you are not a delegate to Council, please come down to Friends Meeting House. Call up the AUT nationally, in advance, and they will confirm your credentials and papers, which you can pick up on the day.

So, yes, Sue Blackwell, we want as many members of the AUT as possible to turn up on this Thursday. We want the hall to be packed. We want to reclaim our union.

Jon Pike
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
The Open University