It’ s sometimes difficult to explain the significance of the changes the Labour Party is currently going through. Where anxious members see falling membership figures, I see a refreshing honesty about how many paid-up members the party actually has. Where they see a massive financial deficit, I see a new-found desire for financial transparency. Of course, we’re still confronted by serious political challenges and these need to be addressed. But Charles Clarke, David Triesman and the NEC are determined that, whatever the problems, they’ll now be approached in a much more open and candid way. This isn t just a change in management style, it’s a massive political step towards giving members a sense of ownership of their party.
The issue of youth engagement is a perfect example of this new mood. It’s no longer considered disloyal to make the fairly obvious observation that our membership is aging fast. The average member is over 50 years-old and, though he or she is a spring chicken compared to the average Tory, the fact remains that we ll only establish ourselves as the party of the 21st century if we can recruit a sufficient number of today s young people. Even more importantly, parliamentary democracy itself will be in peril if insufficient of tomorrow s voters are engaged with its processes.
It was with these issues in mind that the NEC set up a Youth Task Force, which I was asked to chair. We ve done a lot of work on plans to restore the fortunes of Young Labour and to reinvigorate Labour Students. Once ratified, these plans will either come on stream in the autumn or will be announced at next February s Labour Youth Conference.
But we also wanted the party to engage in some long-term strategic thinking. The Task Force couldn t see much point in breathing life into our existing youth structures if the party as a whole wasn t prepared to take on the challenge of transforming its politics so that young people would be attracted to it. With this in mind we invited Progress and Unions 21 to set up a day-long conference called Is the Party Over How Do Politicians Engage With Young People?
The conference held in July was generally acknowledged to have been very successful by the hundred or so people who attended. But the danger with conferences is that when the talking is finished, nothing happens. In this case, though, the commitment from those present was so genuine that I m convinced the challenging questions raised will now begin to occupy our political landscape.
There was general agreement that the phrase youth apathy is a pernicious misnomer. Many young people are alienated from politics and politicians but they re as passionate about the things they care about as any previous generation. They re also not only interested in so-called youth issues, such as Third World debt and the decriminalisation of soft drugs. Jobs, housing and transport are high on their list of priorities but the young don t often make the connection between these issues and their ability to transform them via political activity.
Many conference delegates pointed out that young people are very diverse and that it s important to respond to that diversity. For instance, it s often the most vulnerable young people who are most affected by changes to government policy. Some thought that party membership meant toeing the party line, that somehow when you signed up to the Labour Party you had to leave your critical faculties behind. Others wanted more open structures within the party, with more dialogue, debate and discussion in order to attract young people and have greater communication with them.
It was clear from the many examples given by young people active in their local communities that, if they feel empowered, the young have the potential to act in an imaginative, fresh, responsible and non-sectarian way. The challenge we face is to create such an environment within the Labour Party.