In July 2025, 72 Sabbatical Officers, 10 legal, academic and human rights bodies, and 111 student societies and groups, wrote an open letter demanding the NUS take action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The NUS threatened those Sabbatical Officers with suspension.
They released an empty, neutral statement, not acting on calls for an ethical divestment campaign, disclosure of potential ties with complicit regimes, or rescinding the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
At NUS conference in November, Sabbatical Officers and student delegates walked out when it refused to say it is an ‘anti-Zionist’ organisation.
This is a major deterioration of the NUS of the 1970’s and 80’s which staged protests and boycotts that were instrumental in getting Barclays Bank to divest from South Africa’s apartheid regime.
In 2022, the NUS ousted its president Shaima Dallali, spending over £840,000 investigating her, over pro-Palestinian comments they claimed were antisemitic. The Federation of Student Islamic Societies called this “disgraceful,” urging disaffiliations. Daillali launched a legal challenge, facing horrific racial abuse as a result. Following a settlement, the NUS conceded ‘pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist beliefs may be protected beliefs’. They also abandoned their ‘decolonise our education’ campaign.
The NUS were ineffective in campaigning against the three-fold increase in tuition fee rises in 2009-10, and then-President Wes Streeting abandoned the ideals of abolishing tuition fees.
Cambridge University, London School of Economics and Liverpool University have already disaffiliated. Currently referendums are being held at many universities including those of Manchester, Newcastle, and Birmingham.
The ‘NO campaign’ believe that we should work in other existing SU organisations, including Russell Group SU’s and Welsh SU’s, and form a more democratic national political voice with other disaffiliating SU’s. Having one body like NUS UK with a monopoly on the student voice is not the case in many countries, such as France.