Liam Burns was elected as President of the National Union of Students in April this year, beating off competition from York’s Thomas Byrne, amongst others. He claimed 446 of a possible 744 in the last round of voting, after leading in every other round, to become President in an election where he was widely viewed as the underdog.
Seven months since that day and now three months into his presidency, at the National Student Media Summit held by the NUS and Amnesty in London, he tells me of his pride in what the NUS has achieved for its members under his leadership. Although in a year of radical change in higher education with the tripling of student tuition fees, he admits that there’s a lot of work still to be done.
Burns, who ran for the presidency as an independent candidate despite being a member of the Labour Party, is committed to taking a stand against the increase in tuition fees which is intended to encourage student consumerism within the education system.
He puts himself firmly on the moral left when it comes to the direction of his leadership, a viewpoint notably different from his predecessor, stating in his election campaign he “wouldn’t engage with universities on a value for money basis, as once we concede the idea of Education as a consumer good we have lost the fee argument.”
Burns also has a popular reputation for opposing fee hikes, having previously secured assurance from Scottish politicians to rule out fee increases in the next Scottish Parliament, despite the recent hike. During a press conference following the NUS presidency nominations, Burns was quoted saying, “It’s going to be a hugely challenging year for both further and higher education. I am looking forward to working tirelessly to defend, extend, and promote the rights of students.”
Aged 26 when he won the election, he had previously been involved in student politics both at his own university as the Heriot-Watt Student Union president before leaping to a national level as president of NUS Scotland, whilst also appearing on the academic affairs committee of the European Students Union. Burns’ experience is indeed unquestionable. Now, as an elected officer representing over 7 million students and over 200 students unions nationwide, Burns holds one of the most significant posts in higher education politics.
Burns inherited an NUS almost wholly united against tuition fees, but struggling to define the direction of its campaign. He rejected the militant option explicitly, and defeated those campaigning for a more aggressive policy of protest. Instead he favours continued mass student demonstrations, despite the riotous damage caused in London at the first demo last year, and also favours a graduate tax; now a central tenant of Labour Party policy.
Having already listened to him speaking to an audience for over an hour, I was impressed with the way in which Burns conducted himself.
Given the opportunity to speak to him on a one-to-one basis, my first suggestion was that, for most students, the NUS logo is predominantly associated with a 10% discount at Topshop, or a free cheeseburger at McDonalds and not student politics. I pressed him to tell me and the rest of the student population what we really gain from the NUS.
“I think that our programme of work around student financial support is the thing that most students are going to be interested in”, he explained. “You can’t ignore the fact that someone is having to work over 20 hours a week just to stay in education, taking out thousands of pounds of credit and commercial debt, never mind the student loan debt. Ultimately they end up thinking of dropping out because they don’t have enough money in their pocket. That’s something we’ve not dealt with enough in the past.
“It’s a mixture of direct discounts and benefits to their students union through a buying consortium whilst, politically, we have put millions back into students’ pockets over the last five years. And going forward I think we’re going to get some great wins out of our current work on student financial support.”
As President of NUS Scotland, a post he gained after becoming Union President at Heriot-Watt University, Burns was a huge supporter of the national demo this time last year. He feels that, despite last year’s ‘Demolition’ ending in violence and costing the union over £100,000, the event was a “massive success”.
In fact his manifesto when running for presidency stated an intention to hold a second national demonstration. Upon my suggestion that the reputation of students nationwide had been damaged irreparably by the violence associated with the protests last year, he encouraged me to “look at what we’ve managed to do, we turned out 50,000 people onto the streets of London and less than 200 acted violently.”
His support for the student protests contrasts with that of predecessor Aaron Porter, a member of the Labour Party, who decided not to run for re-election as President after accusations of a lack of support for students protesting against the increase in fees.
Although Burns has little knowledge of York personally (as opposed to his vice-president Ed Marsh who later, after a couple of drinks, starts a debate with me over the merits and faults of the Willow), he is able to speak comprehensively and critically on the issues that York students face in terms of poor employability.
“We would’ve expected universities to be good at employability, whether we’re paying £20,000 a year or nothing: it’s kind of the point…” He goes on to add that “the purpose of universities is social mobility – taking someone from one standard of living and escalating it – it should be about that. I do think though that we have to be careful that the value of education isn’t just about the job.
“There’s plenty of research to show that as a graduate, you access the health system less, you access benefits less, the sort of happiness factors that the UN look at, all of those are demonstratively higher if you’re a graduate.
“If we go back to a really instrumentalist approach to what education is about then universities will answer and then some, and they’ll start treating you as a customer. As a customer you have very few rights unless you just want to leave. I don’t think that’s the way that students want to be treated.”
On Thomas Byrne, his first-year York rival for the NUS Presidency at the elections in April, Burns says; “Thomas and I actually had some really interesting conversations and he had some really good policies.” Running what was considered a suicidal campaign for the Presidency., he based his campaign around his support for the government’s trebling of tuition fees which he believed was ultimately a fairer system for poorer students.
He argued “a rise in the repayment threshold from £15,000 to £21,000 will reduce all graduates’ bills significantly, while bringing the lowest-earning graduates out of the repayment system altogether.” Despite coming in last place, Byrne’s campaign, some argued, showed that the NUS was becoming more accessible.
Burns agreed; “It was fantastic that he ran, it brought out a new dynamic to the elections, and the confidence with which he did it was mind-blowing, and it showed that it can be done. ”
At this point, the NUS Press officer encourages me to leave. Burns seems to be constantly busy and, as I exit, another reporter enters to conduct his own interview.
But while he appeared to be the busiest man around, he still finds time for a couple of pints in a Shoreditch bar with the amassed student journalists later that evening. The shared view was that we’d all been charmed by our NUS president, although perhaps that was all the free wine talking…