With the Students Union (SU) elections behind us, Ripple can reveal that across the three full-time officer roles, 162 votes were cast for Re-Open Nominations (R.O.N.) — a 218% per cent increase on last year’s 51 votes. This sharp rise may be attributable to a targeted campaign by the Internationalist Society encouraging students to vote R.O.N.
The Internationalist Society is a revolutionary communist group working towards a global workers revolution which is entirely free from state influence. In a statement seen by Ripple they said: “Really, the point of our campaign wasn’t just to vote RON, but to expose the SU as an anti-worker organ of management, and show students that there is an alternative – our own class struggle. The results, the tiny turnout (<10%), and even the conversations we had with people on campus, show that there’s definitely a level of quietly burning discontent against the capitalist crisis the bosses are shoving onto us.
“The important thing now is that we actually turn this energy into organising ourselves – as the next staff strike approaches. Too many people still think the crisis isn’t affecting them, or still think others will do the struggle for them! Student-staff groups like LSWAG have already sprung up across universities for this exact purpose.”
Across the part-time officer roles, 321 votes were cast for Re-Open Nominations, which represents a 30 per cent surge on last year’s count of 247. This likely can’t be attributed to the efforts of the Internationalists as they say their campaign targeted only the “big three” executive officers.
A spokesperson for the Students Union said: “In all Students’ Union elections, Re-Open Nominations (RON) is an important part of the democratic process, giving students the option to indicate that none of the listed candidates represent them. As such we welcome Student Engagement with the election process whether this is with regard to campaigning for a candidate or for a Re-Open Nominations (RON) campaign.
“We typically see higher RON numbers when a role is uncontested, which is reflected in the Community Officer and Sustainability Officer results this year. The visibility of the RON campaign also likely contributed to the increase in the percentage of RON voters for the Executive Officer roles to 3.3% as a percentage of votes cast for the three Executive Officer roles compared with 1.1% in the 2025 elections.”
“We welcome all student feedback, and RON is one legitimate way students express their views in our elections. This year’s outcomes are in line with what we would expect given the circumstances.”