The University College London Students’ Union (UCLU) has voted to sever all ties with the military, including banning military recruitment stalls and breaking links with the Officer Training Corps ‘which recruits up to half its number from universities up and down the country’.

The motion (.doc) stated:

“This union believes that because the British military under the Labour Government is currently engaged in an aggressive war overseas, for the union to use its resources to encourage students to join the military or participate in military recruitment activities at this time would give political and material support to the war.”

According to Indymedia,

“The Annual General Meeting had the largest attendance in UCL’s recent history with more than 325 people in attendance at the start of the meeting, making it the first UCL Union General Meeting to make the Union’s 1% quorum since 2003.”

Data compiled by the ‘Study War No More’ campaign, run by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade and the Fellowship of Reconcilliation, shows that the UCL is working on a total of 117 projects for the military worth a minimum of £5,284,072.

Tim Street has more on military involvement in British universities.

The union also voted overwhelmingly to twin UCL with the unions of the Al-Quds and Al-Azhar Universities in the West Bank and Gaza and to ‘establish an educational exchange programme between UCL students and students from the Palestinian universities’. The original motion can be viewed here (.pdf), and the two ammendments here (.doc) and here (.doc).