By a leading Young Labour activist
Many of you will be aware of rising tensions between the Labour party and its youth wing – Young Labour (YL), culminating recently with the party suspending its leading officers from access to their own twitter account.
Left Horizons spoke to one leading activist in Young Labour about the constant attempts to limit and frustrate the work of the youth section. This article consists of their responses, only lightly edited for clarity. The fact they need to remain anonymous should tell you all you need to know about the state of the party right now!!
It goes without saying that Left Horizons offers its full support to Young Labour and demands the creation of a fully democratic, vibrant youth organisation, as there used to be in the 70s and 80. We call for an end to bureaucratic attempts to stifle them and shut down debate.
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“In November 2020 the left won a super majority in the young Labour National Committee, including the Chair, Jess Barnard, and our relationship with the Labour Leadership ever since has deteriorated. But in any case it started off from a position of extreme hostility, and suspicion from Party HQ because as soon as the new National Committee (NC) were elected they were very excited to get started, trying to reinvigorate the youth wing, especially after the defeat in 2019, but as soon as they started to propose things that had to go through party HQ in Southside, there seemed to be a barrier that they just couldn’t get through.
We just understood from pretty early that they were going to try to prevent us from doing anything because they knew that as soon as we were able to run national events, or political education, that young members would be on our side because they would be doing more them than the official Labour Party, especially in terms of the policy platform etc. and being able to criticise it clearly.
In September 2021, before [Labour national] conference, we had planned for young members to come and meet each other for the first time since the Covid crisis started. The Labour Party said that would be OK, and just to let them know what we were doing, but two weeks before the conference, we were told that the speakers we had invited had failed “due diligence” checks regarding antisemitism (which was nonsense) and other issues. This included speakers who had been invited from the Stanstead 15 campaign and other organisations in the UK. Other vague reasons were also put forward and it just seemed obvious that they did not want us to organise anything at all. There has been a sustained attempt of demoralisation of young members, especially those on the left, and a campaign of deligitimisation of us.
Push back
The event did eventually go ahead after a really big push-back from the National Committee and it was very successful. We held a Young Labour rally where Corbyn was present as well as other members of the Socialist Campaign Group such as Zarah Sultana, and the president of the UCU and 200 people turned up. It was a packed room. But that was done outside the official conference zone because the Labour Party was not helping us at all. It was only possible because of the support of left unions such as Unite, who gave us one of their big conference rooms to hold the rally. Our Young Labour rally was labelled as “cancelled” on the official Labour Conference app. The only way we were able to reach out to members was via our social media accounts.
The rule book states that Young Labour have the right to an annual conference and we have been pushing for this. It has been promised by the Labour party officials but has never come to fruition. The national youth officer whose job is to facilitate our work has not been at all helpful. The post is soon to be axed, in any case. Regional reps have the right to form regional Young Labour groups with their own committees etc but it has not been possible to start a single regional group. Some of us were asking, “What is the point of Young Labour if we are not able to do anything!”
We are still pushing back against this leadership because the party belongs to us, it belongs to young people, working class people, and regardless of the direction of the party under Keir Starmer, we think young people have a role to play in keeping the party to the left and have the right to some autonomy. Nearly every other social democratic party in Western Europe gets some sort of funding from their main party but we have not received any money for the last two years. Other youth sections hold their own conferences and have much more autonomy and can hold different policy positions.
Common sense
There have been a few things that YL have put out that have irritated the Labour leadership and the officials. One was thought to be a “common sense” position that a Labour party was here to represent labour, ie working people and their interests. So when we saw Labour politicians crossing picket lines at universities, we thought that was totally unacceptable and YL put out a statement that said it was only going to actively support candidates that support trade unions. That was effective, because anyone who spoke up against that position was seen as a scab. Even some on the right would find it hard to disagree with that statement.
The Young Labour National Committee has democratically elected Social Media officers that take the lead on the output on Young Labour’s channels and over the last few months, there have been quite a few things that have happened internally in the Labour Party and debate within the party about positions that the leadership has taken. Obviously, the most recent thing was the invasion of the Ukraine.
Before the invasion, Young Labour put out a statement after Keir Starmer attacked Stop the War, saying that they acknowledge that NATO has played a role in exacerbating and accelerating conflict. Obviously, they were not declaring support for Putin. In a statement that they put out a few days later, the first line condemned Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine and expressed solidarity with working people in both Ukraine and Russia against war.
The next morning YL officers could not log into their accounts, with no warning, and the Labour Party used the YL twitter account to announce that they had suspended access the account. Starmer has used it as an opportunity to show how strong he is and how he won’t accept any disagreement in the party.
Joke
His office spoke to the Daily Mirror which ran an article a few hours later saying that they are withholding any funding for our conference, which is a joke because for the last two years they have not given Young Labour any support anyway! YL had planned to hold a six-week political education programme, half online and half in person, but they had withdrawn support for that already, so this latest threat is a sham. YL were examining options of alternative funding from unions etc. in any case.
For me the most worrying thing about all this is that the actions of the party over the last few months, in terms of its treatment of its own democratically elected youth wing, makes me scared about what a potential Keir Starmer government would do if they were elected, in terms of its policies towards young people and democratic reform of the country. I am losing trust, faith and belief that a Labour government led by Keir Starmer government would be beneficial for young people.
There has been a trend towards demoralisation among young party members. There were 100,000 young members under Corbyn, and it is estimated that a third of those have lapsed or resigned. So we are still very big but we have lost over 30,000 young members. I have a lot of admiration for the leading members, and NC members, of Young Labour, because they have not been hesitant in continuing to fight the leadership on this. Several of them have faced constant bullying from the party over the last two years. But the YL leaders are standing firm.
Healthy and essential debate
According to the Daily Mirror article, a meeting is planned between David Evans and leading members of Young Labour very soon. The key immediate demand is that YL get back control, of their own social media account, as democratically elected members of the committee. But there is a need to have a genuine working relationship with party HQ where their priority is not just to shut down any debate. We consider that is healthy and essential.
But honestly, its hard to list any tangible demands because the relationship is so toxic right now. There is a breakdown of any trust in the national Party. This is the first time anyone from the leadership of the Party has actually reached out for a meeting with the elected members of the YL Committee. Keir Starmer has not once reached out to them, even now. This the first opportunity that members of the Committee will have to talk to David Evans face to face or even on zoom. I think Evans thinks he is like a head teacher, who can tell young people off, but they are not going to take that.
The message is to stay firm, stay in the party and keep fighting.”
