Prominent figures from the National Union of Students (NUS) have been visiting Cambridge, as voting on the referendum on whether Cambridge University Students’ Union will disaffiliate from the organisation continues.  A range of officers have been spotted on Sidgwick site this morning, where they will be speaking to students.

Among them was the current NUS LGBT officer and incoming VP for Society and Citizenship, Rob Young (pictured left, above). NUS President, Megan Dunn, and NUS Vice President for Further Education, Shakira Martin, will also visit Cambridge today.

Along with NUS officers, a handful of people supporting the "No" campaign were handing out flyers to students at the Sidgwick site earlier today.

Speaking to Varstiy's Ankur Desai, the "No" to disaffiliation campaign's Lola Olufemi said that she was "forever optimistic" and that the "No" campaign is "really engaging students and showing people the things NUS does."

She continued: "I don’t think they’re aware how broad the organisation is, how many areas it focuses on, and how it helps liberation campaigns.”

“NUS is an organisation that is capable of being reformed from the inside, we can adjust to the concerns students have about the way it’s made up and the direction it’s moving in. It’s also an organisation that does lots of work in this university.

"We don’t get a block grant, so the liberation campaigns rely on NUS resources quite a lot, so taking that away from us when we’re dealing with things like the white paper, and the Prevent strategy would not be ideal and would disadvantage all of us.”

NUS Vice President for Union Development, Richard Brooks, and NUS Wales Women’s Officer, Rosie Inman, visited Cambridge yesterday, where they filmed promotional videos for Cambridge’s “No” to disaffiliation campaign.

In one of these videos, Brooks - in his second visit to Cambridge in as many weeks - claims: “the NUS has a really long and proud history of winning on behalf of students, both in Cambridge and across the UK”.

He cites the introduction of 16-25 railcards and students’ exemption from council tax as examples of the NUS’s successes.

Brooks does concede that there are “a number of really legitimate concerns about NUS,” including “around our democracy and how representative it is.”

He goes on to highlight the NUS’s democratic review, which is currently underway, and will be brought to the 2017 NUS National Conference, where delegates will vote on changing NUS democratic policy, arguing: “if you want to be a part of changing fundamentally the way NUS does its democracy, you need to be a member of NUS.”

Brooks then addresses what he termed “the really legitimate concerns of Jewish students up and down the country” surrounding “NUS’ rhetoric, and the way that it talks about the marginalisation of Jewish students.”

“What I want to say is that we absolutely do take those concerns at face value, they are legitimate, and that any form of anti-Semitism, on campus, or in wider society, is not tolerable, and we will always address it,” he added.