Malia Bouattia’s rise to the NUS presidency from the political left mirrors Jeremy Corbyn’s ascendency within Labour. Although they are from very different political traditions, they have both been thrust from the fringes of their movement to its leadership by democratic means.
Her victory over incumbent Megan Dunn at April’s NUS Conference also signalled a marked shift within student politics: no incumbent has lost reelection since Jack Straw was elected on a new wave of activism in 1969. In many ways, Bouattia will be much less influential over ‘hard’ sector policy due the radicalism of her views. And like Corbyn she has been embroiled in highly damaging allegations of anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, her election does represent an emboldened and increasingly angry new generation of student activists angered by fees, racial and gender inequality, and marketisation: ‘Blair’s children’ in more ways than one, though Bouattia herself is the daughter of Algerian refugees. Fronting the why is my curriculum white? campaign, and with a large student demonstration planned for later this year, Bouattia’s NUS will no doubt draw a lot of media attention, even if it engages less with the nuts and bolts of higher education policymaking.