NEWS: Ellie King elected new Chair of Warwick SU Council, after just 70/24,000 students were invited

Ellie King (History 3rd Year) has been elected Chair of the Warwick SU Student Council for the next academic year, 2017-18.

Student Council is Warwick SU's primary de-facto decision making body. On paper, they have the 'primary responsibility for the implementation and oversight of Union Policy, Regulations and Principles' - according to the SU's Constitution.

Whilst students at Warwick vote each term at Referenda deciding the SU's official policies (known as motions); in practice, Council acts as a powerful decision maker on SU direct democracy, which can (and does) vote down motions - to stop motions progressing to Referenda. In 2017, Council voted down a motion to have directly elected members to go to the Term 3 Referenda.

The election of Chair (and Deputy Chair) is conducted at the last Council meeting of the year, where the existing franchise of Council is increased to Super Council - including both the Sabbatical Officers and all other members of the SU Execs.

On the 12th June, at the last Council Meeting, quorum was narrowly not reached. Despite Council meetings being officially open to all students to attend, the event was circulated in a closed Facebook Group - where only 70 out of 24,000 students were invited. Neither of Warwick's two student newspapers, the Boar or Tab were invited.

12th June 2017 final Council Meeting: Only 70 out of 24,000 students invited to Council on Facebook.

As a consequence, the meeting started half an hour later than the intended time of 4pm, and the Democracy Team subsequently ruled to move the vote to an online election after the speeches.

Four students ran for Council Chair – Tom Jepson (former SU Presidential candidate), Ellie King (former SU DDO candidate and Warwick Tories' Deputy Chairman), Sheikh Umair Jamal (1st Year Engineering Student), and Ptolemy Banks (Psychology Society Treasurer). Two students also put their names forward for Deputy Chair of Council – Emma Worrall (Warwick Labour's Talks and Events Officer) and Ptolemy Banks.

Our anonymous source present, told the Eye that the move was "an attempt to prevent Ellie King from winning", however Ellie came through victorous in the online election, by a landslide with 28 1st preference votes.

Emma Worrall was elected Deputy Chair of Council, with 21 1st preference votes.

The Eye believes Council will be a much more representative and moderate body - now with both a member of Warwick Tories and Labour respectively as Chair and Deputy Chair.

At least, next year Council shouldn't vote to abolish the monarchy, unlike this year (Boar Article).

By Warwick Eye

Sources:
SU Constitution - Memorandum and Articles (link)
SU Council Vote Against Directly Elected Member (link)
SU Monarchy Abolition Controversy (link)