A Defence for Aaron Porter
I wanted to tweet a defence of Aaron Porter, but there really is too much to say for 140 characters.
Mr Porter, President of the National Union of Students (NUS) has been under increasing criticism for his leadership. He has suffered smears and accusations from political opponents (it is widely believed the brief against him over the ‘leaked e-mails’ where he conceded tuition fees came from the Liberal Democrats). Mr Porter has even suffered votes of no-confidence, many of which have failed. Today I heard reports that he was chased down the street in Manchester, adding to the eggs thrown in Oxford.
I firmly believe that those who are against Porter (and the NUS as a whole) are ruining the student movement.
I’m not a member of the NUS, but I am a sympathiser and why is this? Because I have heard and seen Aaron Porter speak. He is articulate, he is intelligent, he is able to control his anger and funnel it into rhetorical passion, just like other presidents in the NUS are able to. Many criticise him for being too moderate; I disagree. In fact, I’d argue that sometimes he hasn’t been moderate enough. Some of the rhetoric used through the tuition fees campaign felt sensationalist to me, which isn’t needed with such a talented orator at the helm. I accept Porter has made mistakes, but none have been critical to losing public support. If the radical left think they wouldn’t make any mistakes at all then they are deluded by arrogance.
Fact of the matter is, students need Aaron Porter. He needs to be the acceptable face that will gain sympathisers like me and even the Daily Mail readers. The public would have been impressed with the strength of feeling had 50,000 protesters turned up in March with a shared, peaceful voice. Instead the news was about the violence and the tone was condemning. The radicals lost the tuition fees that day, despite Aaron Porter’s determined attempts to keep public opinion onside. If you look throughout history, radicalism rarely worked without an acceptable, peaceful face leading it. Martin Luther King, Ghandi are two examples. I’d never say Aaron Porter is as iconic and important as these but he needs to take the roles they assumed for the sake of students.
I’m not saying Broad Left etc should just crawl in a hole and shut up, they have a right to a voice in a free democracy even if I disagree with it, but why are they trying to take over the NUS? Surely the more intelligent view would be to work with them? History has shown us that you rarely win debates without winning minds and you only win minds through debate, discussion, negotiation.
In my view, democracy only works through consensus, it fails when one faction of society tries to enforce their will without compromise. This is why I will never support radicalism in any aspect of the political spectrum and will support excellent communicators and consensus builders.
