Le NUS britannique menace de sanctions les élus étudiants signataires d'une lettre ouverte sur Gaza
DATE
LOCATION
TARGETED PERSON/INSTITUTION
Les élus étudiants salariés signataires de la lettre ouverte, et le collectif « Not My NUS »
DOMAIN/FIELD
RESPONSIBLE FOR BAN
La direction de la National Union of Students : Amira Campbell, présidente ; Kat Stark, directrice générale.
On 11 July 2025, an open letter was sent to the Board of Directors of the National Union of Students (NUS), a body that claims to represent more than 4.5 million students across the UK. It criticised the union's silence on Gaza, its inaction in the face of the suppression of student activism, and its posture of "neutrality". It set out eight demands: recognise a "plausible genocide" in Gaza; call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire; condemn Israeli apartheid and occupation in line with international law; rescind the IHRA definition of antisemitism; lead a national ethical divestment campaign; defend the right to protest, including against Zionism; investigate Islamophobia and anti-Black racism within NUS structures; and disclose institutional ties to complicit regimes.
The number of signatories has exceeded 100 elected sabbatical officers and 120 student groups. The letter was backed by ten legal, academic and human rights bodies, including the European Legal Support Centre, CAGE UK, BRISMES and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention.
On 16 and 18 July 2025, NUS President Amira Campbell and CEO Kat Stark wrote to the chief executives of local students' unions, asking them to secure the withdrawal of signatures from salaried elected sabbatical officers and an end to their support for the "Not My NUS" Instagram account. Failure to comply would place those officers in breach of the NUS Code of Conduct and result in their exclusion from the national "Lead and Change" conference, scheduled for late July in Birmingham. Officers were given seven days.
Antonia Listrat, Guild President at the University of Birmingham, described this as an unprecedented attack on the student movement and said she feared for her job and her rent, while refusing to remove her signature. Some officers did withdraw theirs. The NUS ultimately cancelled the Lead and Change conference after students occupied the Birmingham venue.
On 23 July, "Not My NUS" sent a twelve-page response rejecting the allegations. It noted that the leadership had ignored the Jewish signatories and Jewish organisations, stated that its criticisms had targeted Zionist organisations rather than Jewish identity or communities, and rejected what it called the deliberate conflation of Jewishness with Zionism embedded in the IHRA definition whose lead drafter, Ken Stern, has himself described its use as a blunt instrument for labelling anyone an antisemite.
On 30 September 2025, the BRISMES Council - a co-signatory of the 11 July letter- issued a statement. It held that, rather than engaging with the substance, the NUS leadership had embarked on a campaign of intimidation against the elected officers who signed, conducted through pressure on students' union chief executives, and aimed at suppressing legitimate expressions of political belief, including anti-Zionist positions protected under UK law.