Simon Renton, a UCU national negotiator and the Independent Broad Left candidate, won 61 per cent of votes cast in the election for vice-president higher education.

The only other candidate was Jim Wolfreys, the King¡¯s College London branch president and UCU Left candidate.

The result means Mr Renton, a history lecturer and computer technician at University College London, will be the union¡¯s president in 2013-14. The post alternates between higher and further education.

The UCU Left is likely to stand a candidate against the union¡¯s general secretary, Sally Hunt, in elections later this year, according to both supporters and opponents of the group.

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Divisions within the UCU have widened in recent months. The UCU Left successfully pressed for the union to give official support to January¡¯s protest by student left groups against fee rises and funding cuts, and it criticised the union¡¯s leadership for failing to mobilise behind the march that took place in December.

The angry response from the Left¡¯s opponents included a ¡°Reclaim the Union¡± email circulated to branches by three members of the union¡¯s national executive committee.

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The email attacked ¡°the sectarian behaviour of the Socialist Workers Party, which dominates and controls...UCU Left¡±, saying the groups ¡°are seeking to take over our union¡±.

The UCU Left says on its website that ¡°a public schism is not what the UCU needs at a time when we are entering a period of national action in defence of jobs and pensions¡±, describing the email as ¡°redolent of the worst anti-communist ¡®witch hunts¡¯ of the Cold War¡±.

Although the result of the ballot for the next vice-president went against the UCU Left, all four of the higher education candidates it stood in elections to the national executive committee were successful.

In the vice-presidential ballot Mr Renton won 8,533 votes and Dr Wolfreys 5,409. There were 649 spoiled papers.

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john.morgan@tsleducation.com