One of the major lessons to be learnt from the general election is that the three main parties failed to engage students or the young with the political process. Large numbers of young people – despite the enticement of soap star-studded political broadcasts – sat at home and failed to vote. This is particularly worrying for the Labour Party as young people traditionally make up a large proportion of Labour’s core vote.
However, this was to be expected given the lack of resources and respect given to Labour’s youth and student wings in the first four years of government. The party has failed to take its young members seriously as a way of engaging its young activists. If Labour is to re-engage young people across the country, then it has to make some major changes to ensure the young and student activists have a strong voice and real power in the party, and are seen as an attractive organisation for young political activists to join. At present Young Labour and Labour Students are seen as little more than party foot soldiers during elections or, alternatively, there is the view that they are potential trouble makers and should be kept on a tight rein by the party’s Youth and Student Officer at Millbank.
It is a sad thing to have to admit, but we could do with learning a few lessons from the Liberal Democrats. LDYS not only has its own elected autonomous officers and its own office, but also has its own budget and staff. If Labour is to take its youth and student wings seriously, then it must give them their own autonomy with the freedom to run their own office in the way they choose. Labour’s youth and student wings should be a beacon to other political parties on how to engage young people in the political process.
The key to a healthy, vibrant youth and student wing is strong internal democracy. This means allowing internal elections to go on without pressure or interference from other outside parties and allowing young and student activists to determine their own policies on issues that effect young people and the country as a whole. Young members can, and must, be trusted with helping to make policy in certain areas. The party needs to hold open discussions with young members, in a forum where they feel able to express their own views and not where they feel compelled to toe the party line or feel intimidated by those who run such sessions.
Another unresolved issue that needs to be addressed is the gross inequality that presently exists between Labour Students and Young Labour. At present Labour Students has three elected officers based at party HQ. Young Labour, despite having a much larger membership, gets nothing other than an unelected party official.
What Labour needs is to unite its youth and student organisations, on an equal footing so they work together to achieve their common purpose of promoting Labour’s key values among students and young people. This would also make Labour Students wake up and take its membership in further education colleges more seriously. At present they have failed to engage students from FE in any major way. It would also ensure that young people aren’t just encouraged to be involved in the Labour Party when they achieve the age of majority at eighteen, but that all young people, especially those under the age of eighteen, are engaged in the party. What is also important is that all young people, regardless of whether they go on to university, have opportunities to get involved. This would enable young people from all backgrounds and lifestyles to get involved.
Any changes made to the structure of the organisation must place democracy at its heart, something that has been absent in the past few years. The election for the position of youth representative on the NEC is a case in point. The way the most recent elections were held was enough to put any young activist off being involved for life. To anyone on conference floor it looked like nothing more than a shoddy stitch up, with a number of trade union delegates holding the balance of power. The election, it seemed, wasn’t an exercise in democracy, but a rubber stamp on previous back room deals. Incidents such as voting taking place before hustings and observers being given delegate badges are just a couple of examples of corrupt occurrences. This must change if the party wants its young activists to have trust in the party’s democratic structures.
The elections for the officers of Labour Students told a similar, depressing story, with only a handful of ‘accepted’ delegates casting a vote. Staff involvement in internal party elections is not a new phenomenon. But the extent to which some members of party staff abused their position this year has discredited the entire process of democracy in the youth movement, thereby discrediting anyone elected by those procedures.
How many more disillusioned activists and lapsed members do we need before the party realises that things have to change? The party should let go and give real power and real freedom to its young activists. But more than that, it needs to put trust in them. The party must not be paranoid and assume that, by taking this step and loosening their grip, Young Labour and Labour Students will all of a sudden be hijacked by some militant organisation.
No solution will solve the problem over night. But at some point in the near future, the party and the leaders of Labour’s youth and student activists will have to wake up and make some decisions on the future of the youth and student wing.
In terms of structure, the new youth and student organisation should retain its sabbatical officers and youth representative on the NEC. One member, one vote should be introduced for internal youth and student elections so that every young and student member gets a ballot paper, has a voice and has a say – putting power in the hands of the membership. The organisation would also need is its own autonomous budget, so it can run campaigns and events, which it both decides upon and has control over. The funding arrangements for Labour Students, in particular, need to be changed. For the past few years, Labour Students has been financially dependent upon trade unions, which has lead to a very unhealthy political relationship.
Trade union involvement and support is important. But it is essential that young activists from the youth section of all trade unions get involved in the transformation of the youth and student wing. It should not be dominated by a couple of unions that simply seek to run and control Young Labour and Labour Students in pursuit of their own political agendas.
What is crucial in all of this is that the young activists from all across the country decide on what direction they take. It is a decision for them and them alone.The most effective way of re-engaging with young people across the country is to get our young activists to take on that challenge and make it happen. Labour’s youth and student wing also needs it own staff. That means that the youth and student officer based at Party HQ works under the guidance of Young Labour and Labour Students and not the other way around. It also means providing day to day administrative support for the officers but remaining completely neutral in the internal politics of the new organisation, not acting as a quick fixer when it comes to internal elections.
This opportunity to restructure and reengage the youth and student movement must be welcomed with open arms. But we cannot just sit around and talk about it. If we don’t change now, then Young Labour and Labour Students will wither away and become nothing more than a clique for a few activists. Modernisation of Young Labour and Labour Students is long over due.