Laveen Ladharam: Conservatives must change their student unions for the better

Laveen Ladharam was Publicity Officer of the University of Warwick Conservative Association in 2010-11 and is about to start a GDL at the College of Law in September.

“Laveen, remember, student unions are left-wing madrassas”, were the consoling words of my good friend and Conservative Home contributor, Hasan Afzal when he learned that I’d lost my campaign to be Warwick Students Union President. To an extent, he was right. Yet, this should not be allowed to stand. I have recently graduated in History from the University of Warwick – "Red Warwick" as the left like to call it. After initial resentment of the students union for being “too left wing”, I got involved, and was able to make a difference with the help of other Conservatives and like-minded people at Warwick.

We need to get involved within our student unions on a fundamental basis. When I say we, I mean people of a conservative mindset. I have spoken to people in many universities  Manchester, the LSE, UCL and people at Warwick - and the one claim that is made time after time is that their Students Unions are “out of control.” Indeed, Manchester Students Union have passed a boycott of Israel and UCL Union infamously banned the Armed Forces in their buildings. I ask why these conservative leaning students don’t act upon their concerns. The response is the same - they believe that they are all “communists”. These students have disenfranchised themselves because they fear their concerns will fall upon the deaf ears of socialist fanatics.

We need to seize the initiative within our student unions to push through policies that we want. It won’t be easy, but once we get in, we can make student unions moderate. The best way to do this is to get more conservative-minded people to stand for election. Ideally they should be members but they don’t have to be, provided that they have similar perspectives to us. Ronald Reagan once said: "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." He was right. Provided we get people with similar views to ourselves - be they Tories, Orange Book Liberals, libertarians or even Blairites - we can get results that reflect our ideals.