From Dai Moon
Many if not most UCU members will not be aware that the 2023 Officer and National Education Committee (NEC) election results were released this month. For those who are aware, there is no guidance to explain what these results may mean for the future direction of the union nationally.
Scrutineers’ reports show voter turnout for national seats coming in at 10.7% and HE Seats at between 12.3% and 13.4%, meaning there has been a slight improvement on the previous year’s turnout of 7.9%. Clearly, despite this small increase, there remains a disconnect between the wider membership and the union’s democratic structures.
A driving aim of the Campaign for UCU Democracy is making the union’s internal politics intelligible to the whole membership, rather than the smaller group of ‘intensely engaged’ activists only. This guest blog post aims to help towards this with an overview of the Higher Education Committee (HEC) results – a separate post looking at Further Education Committee (FEC) results will follow.
As outlined elsewhere, UCU politics is largely factional, with two major factions organised in the open and both running slates of candidates: UCU Commons (UCUC) and UCU Left (UCUL). Another tendency, currently lacking an organised factional identity (i.e. the old Independent Broad Left and/or UCU Agenda), is also identifiable both via a legacy of past memberships and a prominent set of voting recommendations in these elections, which might be labelled ‘anyone but UCUL’. Looking at these slates first, therefore, what is the current ‘balance’ on HEC?
THE ACKNOWLEDGED FACTIONS
UCUL had a clear slate: Out of the 23 candidates UCUL recommended (20 UCUL members and three non-members#) seven were elected, six of whom were re-elected*: Maria Chondrogianni*, Mark Abel*, Deepa Govindarajan Driver*, Marion Hersh*, Rhiannon Lockley*, Carlo Morelli and Aris Katzourakis*#. This takes their new membership to 10 on HEC (also including Julie Hearn, Peta Bulmer and Sean Wallis, but not counting Aris Katzourakis who was recommended, but not a UCUL member), down from 13.
UCUC had a clear slate: Out of the 13 candidates UCU Commons recommended for HEC (11 UCUC members and two non-members#), nine were elected, one of whom was re-elected*: Lucy Burke#, Matilda Fitzmaurice, David Harvie, Rebecca Harrison, Bijan Parsia*, Jak Peake#, Mark Pendleton, Caroline Proctor and Vivik Thuppil. This takes their new membership to 13 on HEC (also including Jo Edge, Emma Kennedy, Esther Murray, Emma Rees and Laura Campbell, but not counting Jak Peake and Lucy Burke who were recommended, but are not UCUC members), an increase from 10.
This means that UCUC now have more representatives on HEC than UCUL, a significant growth in the former (+2) at the expense of the latter (-3). These are the only two formal factions…
INDEPENDENTS pt.1
The rest of HEC consists of 19 independents. But this blanket label hides more than it illuminates. My next goal is therefore to try and drill further down.
This takes us to the third slate mentioned, recommended on Dyfrig Jones’s Medium blog, which is, as said, really an ‘anyone but UCUL’ slate that includes recommendations for independent candidates and UCUC members (pointing to an alliance on issues related to industrial action in particular). Some of those listed have in the past run-on IBL/Agenda slates (e.g. Ann Gow and Philippa Browning); however, not all these independents may consider themselves as IBL/Agenda, and their placement on the list was outside their control. Where there is a clear overlap, however, is with members of this slate and the host of this guest blog – the recently formed Campaign for UCU Democracy (CfUCUD).
The Campaign’s ‘Who we are” page is explicit that its members “do not consider [them]selves a faction, but rather a campaign group” and “welcomes UCU members of any stripe to join”, publishing pieces by UCU members who are unequivocally not part of CfUCUD or any other faction. Yet, the website also republished Dyfrig’s ‘anyone but UCUL’ slate (my characterisation); so perhaps the term ‘factionette’ fits?[1] Either way, for our purposes here I’m assuming there’s a shared ‘vibe’ between those recommended on this slate, which means we might expect a particular voting approach on HEC, while respecting the sincerity of the independent identifications.
So, counting only those non-UCUC members listed: Out of the seven candidates recommended (excluding the 11 UCUC HEC candidates), five were elected, one of whom was re-elected: Philippa Browning*,Adam Hansen, Dyfrig Jones, Jak Peake and Jeanette Findlay. Of these, Browning, Jones and Peake are members of CfUCUD, as are existing HEC members Andrew Feeney and Ann Gow. Joanna de Groot is not a member of CfUCUD, but previously ran as IBL/Agenda. Jeanette Findlay and Adam Hansen both appear to have no links to CfUCUD or IBL/Agenda, so, excluding them from calculations, if we consider these independents as likely to vote together this would appear to constitute a grouping of six on HEC (compared to the previously estimated nine for IBL/Agenda).
Considering the overlap in recommendations as evidence of a broad alliance on many issues, this gives UCUC and IBL/Agenda Independents a combined 18 seats on HEC.
INDEPENDENTS pt.2
That leaves us with four independent candidates elected who have no factional recommendation (two of whom are re-elected): Vicky Blake*, Agnes Fluess, Vida Greaux*, Laura Loyola-Hernandez. Four independents have recommendations from different slates: Aris Katzourakis from UCUL, Lucy Burke from UCUC, and Jeanette Findlay and Adam Hansen from the ‘not-UCUL’ slate. They join Kyran Joughin, Linda Moore, Justine Mercer, Grant Buttars and Rhian Elinor Keyse also elected as independents.[2] That amounts to a remaining thirteen ‘unaligned’ independents.
This again, however, hides a lot. Recent months have seen UCUL able to win votes at the HEC with the support of independents – notably the first vote for indefinite strike action, and more recently the decision to not consult the UCU membership on the USS and 4Fights deals. In essence, some members of the current HEC who are genuinely independent from UCUL still tend to vote with them (again, there is a shared ‘vibe’ on key issues). This is significant considering the number of independents re-elected. Nevertheless, lacking individual voting information from HEC, the question of identifying what tendencies may exist amongst independentsis difficult. Candidates do not necessarily consent to being named on different voting lists, for example, and either way, alliances can change over time – none of this is necessarily fixed. Relying on other proxies, such as past statements of support may help but also isn’t a given; e.g. Grant Butters, Kyran Joughin and Linda Moore all signed a letter supporting Jo McNeill as UCUL candidate for VP – then again, so did Jo Grady!
CONCLUSIONS
As an interim conclusion, what we might note is that after this election, for UCUL to outvote the seeming UCUC/IBL/CfUCUD block, they will require nine of these ‘unaligned’ thirteen independents to vote with them. Whether those numbers exist is something that we will all discover when the new HEC commences.
Essentially, therefore, this election must be counted as a bad election for UCUL and a good one for UCUC. It also illustrates the importance of HEC reforms that allow members to see how their elected members vote – e.g. whether tending towards one faction or none – to be able to hold them to account, and to make sense of what it is going on ‘nationally’.
Here is my calculation, if anyone refutes their placement, please correct me:
| Member | Faction / Tendency |
| Maria Chondrogianni | UCUL |
| Mark Abel | UCUL |
| Peta Bulmer | UCUL |
| Deepa Govindarajan Driver | UCUL |
| Marion Hersh | UCUL |
| Julie Hearn | UCUL |
| Rhiannon Lockley | UCUL |
| Carlo Morelli | UCUL |
| Matt Perry | UCUL |
| Sean Wallis | UCUL |
| David Harvie | UCUC |
| Laura Chuhan Campbell | UCUC |
| Joanne Edge | UCUC |
| Matilda Fitzmaurice | UCUC |
| Rebecca Harrison | UCUC |
| Emma Kennedy | UCUC |
| Esther Murray | UCUC |
| Bijan Parsia | UCUC |
| Mark Pendleton | UCUC |
| Caroline Proctor | UCUC |
| Emma Rees | UCUC |
| Vivek Thuppil | UCUC |
| Philippa Browning | CfUCUD |
| Andrew Feeney | CfUCUD |
| Ann Gow | CfUCUD |
| Dyfrig Jones | CfUCUD |
| Jak Peake | CfUCUD |
| Joanna de Groot | Indie (IBL/Agenda) |
| Vicky Blake | Indie |
| Lucy Burke | Indie (UCUC rec) |
| Grant Buttars | Indie |
| Jeanette Findlay | Indie (IBLish rec) |
| Agnes Flues | Indie |
| Vida Greaux | Indie |
| Adam Hansen | Indie (IBLish rec) |
| Laura Loyola-Hernandez | Indie |
| Justine Mercer | Indie |
| Linda Moore | Indie |
| Kyran Joughin | Indie |
| Aris Katzourakis | Indie (UCUL rec) |
| Rhian Elinor Keyse | Indie |
[1]As someone who does not consider themselves part of IBL/Agenda or indeed any faction, but supports the Campaign for UCU Democracy’s broad campaigning aims, I’d like to think I offer some counter to the notion it is a proxy for the former faction(s).
[2]Note: the article originally stated that Grant Buttars and Rhian Elinor Keyse were re-elected, when in fact they are entering the second year of their first terms as HEC members.
Campaign for UCU Democracy 