Concerns have been raised that the National Union of Students (NUS) may not deliver on its promise to address allegations of anti-Semitism, following victory for the remain vote in last week’s affiliation referendum.

Speaking at the disaffiliation debate held on 17th May, Richard Brooks, NUS Vice President for Union Development, faced critics of the organisation, promising a comprehensive anti-racism investigation that will explicitly include Jewish students.

Yet speaking to Varsity, an NUS spokesperson confirmed that there are no ongoing investigations into the conduct of beleaguered President-Elect Malia Bouattia, or any other members of the NUS.

Furthermore, it was confirmed that “it is not policy to release the outcome of internal investigations”, and so there is no guarantee that the results of Brooks’ proposed inquiry will be made public.

This same policy meant that an “informal warning” received by Bouattia following a complaint of anti-Semitism in 2014 was not public knowledge prior to her election in April.

NUS's reply to the complaint, published in The Tab Cambridge on Friday, found that it was “not unreasonable” to interpret Bouattia’s comments, made at an event held by the Tricontinental Anti-Imperialist Platform and Invent the Future, as anti-Semitic.

Commenting on the result of the referendum, which saw Cambridge students vote to remain affiliated to the NUS by the narrow margin of 303 votes, Brooks said “we are currently developing new democratic structures and are planning reforms to our membership model”, but made no reference to the accusations of anti-Semitism which have been the focus of affiliation debates at several universities nationwide.

In Varsity's poll, conducted before the referendum, 26.9 per cent of students said they believed allegations of Bouattia as anti-Semitic were valid. A further 43.7 per cent said that, though she may not be anti-Semitic herself, she had “made use of anti-Semitic rhetoric”. Just 17.5 per cent said they felt the allegations were invalid.

These revelations will likely further the growing dissatisfaction about the lack of accountability within the NUS – following the rejection of “One Member One Vote” at this year’s NUS conference, once Bouattia takes office on 1st July, she can only be removed by a majority vote of NUS delegates, who comprise fewer than 1,000 of the seven million students NUS claims to represent.

Speaking to Varsity, Adam Crafton, who spearheaded the disaffiliation campaign, said “any organisation that claims to be representative should aspire to full transparency. In the case of Malia's investigation, I believe that NUS require an urgent rethink of their rules to ensure the past disciplinary record of any individuals standing for election is available for scrutiny.

"The NUS conference that voted her in had no idea about this investigation and it may well have ultimately decided the vote if delegates had been aware of her past conduct. Instead, it was covered up for over a year and Malia has since made further use of anti-Semitic rhetoric. This is of course further evidence that the NUS cannot be trusted to confront anti-Semitism.”

Victory for the remain vote, which was backed by two members of the CUSU sabbatical team, with the rest remaining neutral, has also led to fresh calls for JCRs to disaffiliate from CUSU. Yesterday, 17 Peterhouse students signed a letter requesting that their JCR hold a referendum on CUSU membership, and today Queens’ College JCR pledged to hold a referendum before the end of the academic year.