Fourth student union votes to split from NUS

AUNIVERSITYwithoneof thehighest numbers of Jewish students in Britain will hold a referendum on disaffiliating from the National Union of Students following the election of Malia Bouattia as its president.

Nottingham University student union could become the fourth such body to leave the NUS in less than two months, following Lincoln, Newcastle and Hull.

Hull University student union held its vote this week, with 811 students in favour of disaffiliation and 476 against.

Cambridge University is currently holding a referendum, the results of which will be released on Friday, while Oxford University’s referendum is set for May 31. Nottingham’s will take place from June 1-9.

Blake Purchase, the Nottingham student whose petition attracted more than 660 signatures to secure the referendum, said that frustrations had been building in the student body before Ms Bouattia became NUS president.

“Her election is indicative of the direction that the NUS has been going in for a long time — a direction of general illiberalism and intolerance that isn’t reflective of students, who are by and large very liberal.”

Ms Bouattia attracted criticism after she described Birmingham University — which has one of the largest Jewish societies in the country — as a “Zionist outpost,” and referred to the “Zionistled media”.

At Warwick University, a motion put before the student union condemning antisemitism was voted against by 189 students.

The motion, which was passed with 72 per cent of the 1,800 votes cast, called on students to “treat antisemitism with the same severity as any other racist offence” and urged the student union to organise at least one event a year “to remember the Jewish and other victims of the Holocaust”.