Shelly Asquith, NUS vice president of welfare: We have a duty to educate the membership and have a political standpoint

'We are starting to be more innovative. We’ve called a national demonstration, but we’re also talking about sabotaging the NSS and working internationally'

Shelly Asquith, pictured, reflects on her first year in the job, and hopes for the future (NUS Connect)

Beaming between mouthfuls of veggie fry up, Shelly Asquith, with her clipped Essex accent, does not seem like your standard politician. With a flicker of resentment at such a suggestion, the newly re-elected National Union of Students’ vice president of welfare clarifies: “I’m an activist,” before offering up her toast. This is no Theresa May.

Sitting in a humble cafe near the NUS London headquarters on the 25-year-old’s day off, and only here because of an administrative error, she swats away any suggestion of her break being interrupted and chats in friendly, informal tones.

She’s coming to the end of a first, tumultuous year in the job, which has seen renewed outrage about student loans, another rise in tuition fees, and nationwide referendums on disaffiliation from NUS, all this accompanied by intense criticism from sections of the student movement and media. Seven students’ unions voted to remain, but the loss of Loughborough, Lincoln, Newcastle, and Hull came as a blow to a union that has been divisive for decades.

Expecting it to be a sensitive subject, I ask: “This year must have been quite tough. You know, with the disaffiliation stuff…?” Asquith who, last month, called for unity within the student movement appears less concerned than you might expect. “Ah, well,” she sighs. “It was, like, unwelcome. But we managed to win almost all of them and come out quite confident that we can win the argument.”

She pins some of the blame for the referendums, which came in the wake of Malia Bouattia’s election as president, on the student movement’s “hard right,” but admits: “It’s a lesson we need to engage better with students on the ground. A lot don’t really know who we are, what we do, why we’re relevant.” Her honesty about NUS’s positions and history is refreshing - it’d be a push to find many other leaders who are so critical about their own institution and role within it, outside of the Labour Party, at least.

She explains: “In 2010, when the tripling of tuition fees happened, I would’ve been quite sympathetic to disaffiliation. In the past, NUS has called demos the leadership hasn’t really believed in because they were mandated to by conference - but, actually, we [the new leadership] are a lot more serious.” Asquith is clear about the issues NUS should be prioritising: tuition fees, college closures, rent prices, and the mental health crisis, whilst warning against in-fighting.

Like many women, she has had to deal with a darker side of activism. After a front page Daily Mail story attacking a prominent Muslim and the student movement criticised her personally, Asquith became the subject of rape threats. She describes the Mail’s story as “very infantilising and very sexualising,” noting their use of the word “girl” and picture of her in a miniskirt and crop top. Yet she is quick to play down the effect such abuse had on her, saying it’s “nowhere near as bad” as what Bouattia - who is black and Muslim - has to endure.

The conversation remains pretty grim when we turn to life back home in Basildon, where “people used to have more opportunities and more hope.” Despite being the daughter of two former factory workers, Asquith suggests her traditionally working-class background is not what politicised her. None of her family is political, she says, adding with a laugh: “Some people think I’m related to that former Prime Minister [Herbert Asquith], but I’m not! People’s proximity to poverty isn’t necessarily going to make them socialist - it depends how that anger gets translated and, obviously, a lot is into anti-migrant stuff.”

Instead, she cites a series of personal events in 2009 as being important. Describing how she felt “the system was against me,” Asquith was forced back home from university and into a job in a call centre, thanks to the lateness of her student loan and grant. Eventually restarting the following year, she became deeply involved with activism before becoming president at the Students’ Union University of the Arts London in 2013, taking up her current position two years later.

That rise through the ranks of student politics seems fast, so, I ask, is she interested in the presidency of the NUS? She greets that question with some rather stern head-shaking; pauses, then settles for “no.” So far, so on message for an ambitious politician, sceptics might suggest. Yet you get the distinct impression of a young, genuine person thinking out loud about what the future holds. She reels off options after her welfare brief finishes, none of which involve NUS - it’s time for “something different,” possibly teaching, the arts, or football industries, or radio, maybe.

What is clear, though, is that she will remain politically active. Indeed, a few days after we talk, she’s on stage at a ‘Keep Corbyn' rally organised by Momentum. Though Frida Kahlo and Tulisa are her two idols - perhaps unsurprisingly, Asquith finds the contrast amusing - she’s full of praise for the Labour leader, too. “I’d like to be his stylist, I think he needs one,” she giggles. She was even part of his campaign to be leader, which is illustrative of her broader involvement in movements outside the British student bubble, reflected by NUS in one newly announced initiative. “We are starting to be more innovative. We’ve called a national demonstration but we’re also talking about sabotaging the NSS [National Student Survey] and working internationally,” Asquith notes, speaking excitedly about Canadian and South African students joining the “international call for free education.”

Yet this approach, of involving the union in things outside bread and butter student issues, has attracted criticism. Asquith is unapologetic and argues for taking political positions on things that are not within NUS’s sphere of influence, like bombing Syria. “It might seem like something is completely alien to the student experience, but there will be students affected in any international crisis; it’s all relative. We have a duty to educate the membership, have a political standpoint, and be principled.

“It’s democracy, innit?”