[8] Members of NOLS in the 1970s included future parliamentarians Charles Clarke, Bill Speirs, Peter Mandelson, Sally Morgan, Mike Gapes, Mike Jackson, Nigel Stanley,[6] Margaret Curran and Johann Lamont.

During Tony Blair's premiership, Labour Students opposed the Government's planned introduction of university "top-up" fees.

In 2016, the national conference adopted a one-member-one-vote (OMOV) system for internal elections, through an amendment of its constitution.

[10][11][12] Further to the disaffiliations by Labour university Clubs, a motion was tabled by Jon Lansman at the Labour Party NEC meeting in September 2019 to dissolve the current organisation on the grounds that it did not pay its affiliation fees nor submitted its political rules to the party.

[17] Internal elections in 2024 saw the victory of the "Organise" faction, backed by Labour First and Progressive Britain, which defeated the left-wing "Socialist Future" group: Ruby Herbert replaced McGowan soon afterwards.

This means that, whilst its aims were broadly in line with the wider party, Labour Students was an independent organisation and was entitled to democratically determine its own policy and governance.

It also includes panels and sessions around issues of particular importance to Liberation groups, for example mental health services or tackling antisemitism on campuses.

In the early 1980s NOLS broke with the Broad Left and presented its own slate of candidates in NUS elections.

A succession of NOLS candidates were elected to the NUS Presidency until 2000 with the strongest challenges generally coming from those to the left of the Labour Party.

Throughout this period, NOLS members of the NUS National Executive Committee were a minority, but exercised effective control.

However, the position was reversed again when National Conference 2016 voted to campaign for universal living grants, funded through progressive taxation, in both further and higher education,[23] in a policy change that had been pushed forward by the left-wing group, the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts.