Regarding the Socialist Alternative deregistration, I was told by some people that this is in fact not the first time Socialist Alternative has been deregistered. This does appear to make some degree of sense - suppose that SA gets deregistered in a couple of weeks, then in a couple of years' time some people try to start it up again. Rejecting this on the basis of the actions of a past club would be somewhat unfair, unless it could somehow be proven that the new applicants intended to do the same thing as the old ones (which might genuinely not be the case). The fact that the current incarnation of SA managed to be registered as a club demonstrates that their 'official' aims and objectives were deemed tolerable by Clubs and Societies, all *actual* behaviour aside. Therefore, with current regulations, should some enthusiastic SA people try to start a club in a couple of years, I don't see a defensible reason to turn them down completely.
In any case, I predict that the Socialist Alternative will be deregistered at the meeting in two weeks' time. Not every instance of a club breaching the C&S Constitution is instantly punished by deregistration (for example, the recently-deregistered Geological Society failed three Audits; the exact letter of the law states the 'default' punishment for failing even one is deregistration). However, I would like to point out the following: the mere fact that we are having an Appeal Hearing means that the C&S Committee (basically the people who run C&S, akin to the committee of a regular club) already has judged that the actions of SA have merited deregistration, not 'just' because they breached the official club rules, but also taking into account a chance for the club to explain/clarify/apologise and other opportunities for correspondence.
There has been an official statement from the C&S President, (which I'm refraining from posting here just in case I'm not meant to), which reaffirms the point made in the last paragraph - SA and the C&S Committee have had a Misconduct Hearing to discuss their actions, and C&S came to the decision that SA should be deregistered. The people who make up that committee are students just like you and me, so I really don't think their judgement would be too different to that of the average club office bearer. Hence, I can't really see any reason why club office bearers would not end up coming to the same (or a very similar) conclusion regarding the SA (unless for some reason, SA has been withholding information/evidence up to this point, which I think is incredibly unlikely).
What about alternative penalties? I don't think most people would consider demoting (essentially reducing the amount of funding a club can get from C&S and additional restrictions) to be the most appropriate/direct way of resolving this issue. While it might partly limit the power of SA, I don't see how it directly addresses the problem with their approach/ideology. There is the alternative penalty of being "directed to apologise". This isn't an impossible outcome, but I personally believe it is unlikely because of the following:
Firstly, SA made a premeditated decision to force everyone who attended the event to sign a petition. Surely their committee would have discussed what to do if people wanted to attend the event, but not sign. Evidently, the result of this discussion was, "we'll prevent them from entering". The issue is being treated as a matter of discrimination, which clearly demonstrates the gravity of the situation. I don't think SA will attract much sympathy from anybody with this kind of mindset.
Secondly, I reiterate my earlier remarks regarding the Misconduct Hearing SA and C&S have had. I am confident that had the punishment of being "directed to apologise" been a reasonable outcome from SA's actions, C&S would have offered it to them. From personal experience, C&S does not act rashly, and definitely aims to give clubs a chance to demonstrate their ability to learn from mistakes. Had this option been available, most clubs would have taken it, as the alternative is risking potential deregistration for very little gain. So either this option was not offered, because it was not viewed as an adequate response to alleged discrimination, or it was offered but declined. I don't think a prideful approach will win SA many fans either.
Thus, I reckon that the only way in which SA won't be deregistered is if enough clubs don't care about them (as studpomba points out). However, apparently there has been a very large amount of interest both from club office bearers and general students alike regarding this issue. I genuinely believe most university students already disapprove of SA's approach, and it will take active convincing to change their minds - so the result of relative apathy is a negative outcome for SA. I personally have not been to any Misconduct Appeal Hearings, but I have spoken to people who have, and also read the minutes from them. There is usually a decent turnout of club representatives (one of the responsibilities of being a club is attending C&S meetings in any case), and it seems that they do respect the laws by which clubs must follow.
In short, I honestly think circumstances would have to change a very large amount between now and the next two weeks, in order for the SA to have much hope of not being deregistered. That's just my two cents, from the perspective of being a former club secretary. With regard to alondouek's point on whether the fate of SA will lead to less 'extreme' active political groups, I'm interested to see if the C&S Constitution (which basically lays down the procedures and guiding principles behind all clubs) will be changed in order to prevent/discourage this sort of thing from happening in future.
<takes a deep breath>
Yeah, I discovered the narrow path leading out of the HAL that means we don't have to keep walking around the Engineering buildings to get to it! 'Tis nice.
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