To left groups including Student Respect/Socialist Worker Student Society, Socialist Students, and to unaffiliated activists on the student left in Britain,

We are writing to propose the creation of a united left electoral slate to challenge for the leadership of the National Union of Students at the 2008 NUS conference.

The domination of NUS and many student unions by Labour Students, "Organised Independents" and other right-wing groups has meant defeat after defeat for the student movement. Now, with its "Governance Review" rewriting the NUS constitution, the NUS leadership is seeking to move the national union even further away from a militant, campaigning policy by breaking up the few remaining democratic channels through which grassroots student activists can become involved in influencing the policy and direction of NUS.

The activist left faces being shut out of the official structures of the student movement, and the gains we have won over the years being destroyed. The situation is extraordinarily serious. Now more than ever, the left needs to unite so that it can challenge the leadership and present activists with a credible alternative.

We cannot and should not pretend that disagreements and differences within the left do not exist; but we can agree that they should be argued out within and as part of a framework of united action. For the NUS elections, we should, while maintaining and arguing for our own distinctive ideas, be able to develop a common programme around basic themes such as

* Defence and extension of NUS democracy.
* A campaigning NUS that mobilises its members in mass action around issues such as fees, grants, student housing, course cuts, rights at work and a living wage, as well as the funding, quality and content of education.
* A political NUS that champions the idea of people before profit, supports all struggles against exploitation and oppression, and actively
takes up the fight for ecological sustainability.
* An NUS which allies with the labour movement and looks to workers' action to change society.

To refuse to even try to put together such a slate, and instead accept as inevitable different left groups standing candidates against each other, would mean letting sectarian hostility get in the way of organising the thousands of students campaigning on issues from free education to war, racism and sweatshop labour - activists for whom NUS should be a natural home, but is currently an irrelevance or worse.

The experience of 1998-2001, when, under the pressure of mass grassroots anti-fees activity, groups including SWSS and the Campaign for Free Education worked with unaffiliated left activists to organise united slates which won a number of positions and came close to winning National President, show that it is possible for us to work together and make real gains.

We are therefore proposing an open meeting to discuss the creation of a united slate - we suggest the afternoon of Sunday 9 December in London, but are open to discussion about date and venue. Please get back to us as soon as possible to let us know what you think.

Education Not for Sale
Sofie Buckland, NUS National Executive Committee and ENS candidate for NUS Women's Officer
Aled Dilwyn Fisher - Young Greens membership officer and LSESU exec (pc)
Stephen Knight - Sheffield College SU President
Heather Shaw - Workers' Liberty students
Dan Glass - climate change activist at Strathclyde University, former University of Sussex SU president (2006-7) and candidate for NUS VP-Education (2007)
Laura Schwartz - NUS Women's Committee

To express interest or an opinion, or to add your name to this appeal, email  volsunga@gmail.com