Student running to be NUS delegate pledges to defeat ISIS

Tom Harwood, a second-year politics student at Durham University has made some bizarre pledges in his campaign to be elected as an NUS (National Union of Students) delegate, including defeating ISIS and building a 217ft statue of Malia Bouattia, the President of the NUS.

In Harwood’s campaign video, which at the time of print has over 14,000 views on on Facebook, he pledges that he will “construct a giant statue of NUS President Malia Bouattia, so that students in Durham can see how vitally important the NUS is to us”.

The campaign video also outlines that he plans to “use NUS boycotts to destroy ISIS” and “bring down the government by means of violent revolution”.

Harwood’s campaign Facebook page states that he is “standing to be an NUS delegate because otherwise there won’t be an opposition to its ridiculous ideas” and includes further campaign pledges including a promise that if elected he would ensure “every lecture begins with a glorious pledge of allegiance to our benevolent supreme overlord — the NUS.”

Harwood ran Durham’s NUS disaffiliation campaign ‘A Better Durham’ last year, when 40 per cent of students voted to leave the Union.

Speaking to The Independent, Harwood argued that “as long as we’re in the NUS we need to work to make it ever so slightly less terrible.”

Despite the satirical nature of his campaign he stressed “my candidacy isn’t just about showing that discontent with the way the NUS works is still strong, it’s also about working to make membership slightly more bearable while we remain a member of this ridiculous organisation.”

The campaign aims to stress that the NUS should not assume students’ interests and that it should be up to campaign groups alone to stage boycotts and protests.

Harwood added: “Most students rightly don’t care about NUS elections. They’re usually full of student politicians producing dull and lengthy policy documents.”

“People are rightly way more enthused about a serious message if it’s presented in a fun way.”

Harwood ends the video saying: “If you vote for me I’ll vote against all irrelavent grandstanding, self-aggrandising, self-defeating NUS policies that only serve to discredit students as a whole.”

Voting closes for students at Durham University on 9th of December at 5pm.