In a break from tradition, CUSU has moved the election of Cambridge’s NUS delegates forward to this term.

Each year, CUSU sends five elected delegates, and its President, currently Amatey Doku, to NUS’s annual conference, which takes place around the Easter holidays.

Elections for the role have previously taken place during March, just over a month before the conference, but this year they will place from the 1st - 3rd November.

Proposing the motion at CUSU Council earlier this term, Doku suggested that it would be beneficial for the delegates to have more time to ensure they are accurately representing the views of Cambridge students, and allow them to be involved in drawing up CUSU policy.

He argued that “given the recent referendum on our affiliation with the NUS, NUS delegates must be accountable and must seek out and represent the views of Cambridge students”. This extended period of responsibility for delegates and greater emphasis on accurate representation of students’ views comes just months after the Cambridge student body narrowly voted to remain a member of NUS.

CUSU held a referendum on Cambridge’s NUS membership last term, with the Remain campaign winning by a margin of 303 votes.

The vote was called following accusations of anti-Semitism within the NUS and against its president, Malia Bouattia, who has in the past described her alma mater, the University of Birmingham, as “something of a Zionist outpost.”

The announcement also comes only days before Peterhouse’s JCR, the ‘Sex Club’, hold their own vote on disaffiliation from CUSU over their handling of the NUS’s handling of accusations of anti-Semitism