Sheffield defends students’ rights and defends OTC

The University of Sheffield Union Council has rejected by a large margin an attempt to ban the Officer Training Corps on campus.  A proposal to ban the OTC entering union property or organising at union events (including freshers’ fayre) was rejected by 27 votes to 10, with only two abstentions.

This is a victory for students everywhere.  The motion stated that the OTC promotes “the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and that it “recruit[s] young people to fight and die in these unjustifiable wars”.  This, of course, is bullshit.  Officer cadets are not required to join the army, are not required to serve on operations of any sort, and are not contributing factors to any wars of aggression: even if that’s what you think the Army is up to.

Instead, the OTC offers training, leadership skills, experience, and fun activity for its participants.  If it didn’t provide a service that students want, nobody would join it!  UCL Union banned the OTC at a farcically partisan and politically-motivated AGM last year - and the result was that the number of students that have joined the OTC has declined precipitously.  That’s fewer students doing what they want to do and fewer students getting vital skills that they want to accumulate to distinguish themselves in the competitive job market.  Bravo, lefties.

We may not like what some societies do.  I don’t think it’s even a matter of opinion that Labour Students help promote the fascistic and totalitarian government that we have.  But it’s supposed to be a democracy run for students - and so long as students are allowed to sign up to Labour’s jack-booted authoritarianism (which is funded by unions), they should also be allowed to sign up to the OTC’s life-enhancing skills and training programmes (which is funded by the Army).

Sheffield struck a vital blow for freedom last night, but the fight is still on elsewhere.  Whatever people think of the Army, that’s no reason to discriminate against students, and no reason to make their university experience any less fulfilling than it should be.