ON 3 DECEMBER 2014, the National Union of Students National Executive Council (NUS NEC), representing seven million students, voted overwhelmingly to oppose the escalating US and UK military intervention in Iraq and Syria.

This vote represents a significant breakthrough for the NUS, which has too often sat on the fence over recent British military intervention in the Middle East. This success also comes despite a national witch-hunt of student anti-war activists by the right wing press allied with pro-war factions within the student movement which sought to smear us as supporters of terrorism.