Editing Labour Students (section)

== Labour Students and the National Union of Students ==
Every year, Labour Students actively organised and campaigned within the [[National Union of Students (United Kingdom)|National Union of Students]] (NUS). As a result of this, Labour Students was viewed as an influential faction within the NUS and its members were frequently elected to the NUS National Executive Council (NEC) and to full-time officer positions, although 2015 saw a majority of their candidates losing to those to the Left.

===History within the National Union of Students===

In the late 1970s, Labour Students (then NOLS) worked within the NUS as part of the [[Broad Left]], a student coalition which also included the student wing of the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] and independent left wing students. The Broad Left stood slates of candidates in NUS elections. (The Broad Left is not to be confused with the post-1997 grouping [[Liberation Left|Student Broad Left]].) In the early 1980s NOLS broke with the Broad Left and presented its own slate of candidates in NUS elections. In 1982, NOLS won the presidency of NUS on its own for the first time. A succession of NOLS candidates were elected to the [[National Union of Students (United Kingdom)#Presidents|NUS Presidency]] until 2000 with the strongest challenges generally coming from those to the left of the Labour Party. Several former NOLS NUS Presidents, including Charles Clarke and Jim Murphy, went on to serve as [[Cabinet of the United Kingdom|Cabinet]] ministers, serving as members of a Labour government. Throughout this period, NOLS members of the NUS National Executive Committee were a minority, but exercised effective control.

Labour Students' flagship policy in NUS was{{When|date=April 2015}} the rejection of campaigning for universal grants, in favour of targeting student support funds towards poorer students through means testing. National Conference 2006 narrowly supported this policy, but it was renewed with a much increased majority in 2007. However, the position was reversed again when National Conference 2016 voted to campaign for universal living grants, funded through progressive taxation, in both further and higher education,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/resources/welfare-zone-live-policy-2014-17|title=Welfare Zone Live Policy 2014–17 @ NUS connect|website=www.nusconnect.org.uk|language=en|access-date=2017-07-16}}</ref> in a policy change that had been pushed forward by the left-wing group, the [[National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://anticuts.com/2016/02/08/left-wing-motions-for-nus-national-conference-2016/|title=Left-wing motions for NUS National Conference 2016|website=National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160329053647/http://anticuts.com/2016/02/08/left-wing-motions-for-nus-national-conference-2016/|archive-date=2016-03-29|url-status=dead|access-date=16 July 2017}}</ref>