If the SGM of last week is anything to go by, we are seeing the start of a new struggle in student politics. Not between the left and the right, or the left and the middle, or between Tees and the Executive, the struggle that is building up is the fight against fascism in the Association. At last week's SGM, fascism has its first victory.

Fascism is a word that tends to be bandied around too frequently, and is often (incorrectly) applied to any supposed extremist group. Because of this wide usage it is necessary to consider exactly what the characteristics of fascism might be. Probably the simplest definition would be the retrenchment of power in a smaller and smaller group that is then forced to harsher and harsher measures to sustain its position. It is usually characterised by measures to stifle opposition by any means possible, generally violent means-both the expression of opposition as well as acts of opposition.

Whatever you conceive democracy to be, fascism is the antithesis of it.

You may well ask how such a repressive and violent system can come into existence. The answer is that fascism rises by playing upon people's natural prejudices and hatreds, casting the groups that the masses are already inclined to suspect, as the cause of crises and difficulties that exist. Clearly not every facet of this definition of fascism can be applied to student politics, some features of society simply do not appear in the university, nevertheless there are similarities.