Young Labour Conference 2011: organise for democracy!

Submitted by AWL on 14 February, 2011 - 8:23

Young Labour Conference took place in Glasgow on the weekend 12-13 February.

This article is longer than the version that appears in the printed paper.

By any reasonable standard of labour-movement democracy, the event was appalling, locked-down by the leadership and skewed to favour the right wing within the Party. Despite this, and despite the fact that the left lost most of the elections at Conference, there were some small developments at this conference which should give leftwing Party activists reasons to be cheerful.

Young Labour as an organisation is not trusted by the Labour Party leadership. After the experience of the period from the 1960s until 1988 when Labour Party Young Socialists was dominated by the left, the leadership were determined that the new Young Labour organisation would be sufficiently tightly locked-down to prevent Trotskyist or leftwing groups from establishing a foothold.

Elected YL officers are denied access to membership lists; the website has not been updated for two years; the YL Committee effectively meets in secret and there is no mechanism for communicating the minutes and decisions of Committee meetings to the membership; setting up YL groups is hindered by a huge number of pettifogging rules and regulations; the list goes on. The attitude of the Labour leadership appears to be that YL should be kept as a supply of young leaflet-deliverers and canvassers, not as an autonomous organisation. So, at the conference, there were no motions debates, but YL delegates were sent out delivering leaflets for a Glasgow MP for an hour on Sunday.

Young Labour is the poor relation to Labour Students, a well-resourced organisation dedicated to launching careers, whose main activity is organising talks by Labour ministers (and since the election, shadow cabinet ministers) on campuses; and getting Labour Student candidates elected to the leadership of NUS. Young Labour, as an organisation of young Labour Party members not based on campuses, is generally more leftwing and orientated towards working-class politics than Labour Students. Labour Students is frequently described as “the shock troops of the Labour leadership”.

This conference was also organised in such a way as to prevent any serious discussion of politics or organisational reform. There was no structure for submitting, discussing or voting on motions; the poor internal communications structure of YL meant that very little information was shared with local groups about the conference until the last minute, making participation difficult; no financial assistance was offered to branches or delegates. Although the total number of delegates that CLPs, YL groups and unions were entitled to send was around 1,300, only around 300 delegates attended.

Most significantly, the conference was run alongside the Labour Students conference, giving Labour Students activists an opportunity to exercise greater influence on the proceedings and ensure the maximum number of Labour Students-whipped votes at YL conference. Combined with the great difficulties thrown in the way of delegates who wanted to attend conference and such bureaucratic manoeuvres as the reported ‘screening’ of Scottish delegates by the leadership, this meant that Labour Students were able to dominate the event.

The main political fight which would take place was the election of the YL Chair. The former chair, leftwinger Sam Tarry, was stepping down. The two candidates for chair reflected the division between YL and Labour Students. Christine Quigley, the left candidate, stood against Susan Nash. The politics of the two candidates’ manifestoes were broadly similar: the important difference was that while Quigley was associated with YL, Nash was an established Labour Students activist. Nash won by a wide margin.

Business on the first day was taken up with long speeches from Party dignitaries such as Ian Gray, leader of the Scottish Party, General Secretary Lord Ray Collins, and Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy; very short liberation caucuses, and hustings for NEC Youth Rep and YL Chair. Tellingly, outgoing chair Sam Tarry was prevented from speaking by the organisers, and was only given the opportunity to address the conference after protests.

On the Sunday, delegates were promised “policy seminars”. “Seminars” and “workshops” appear to be the preferred decision-making methods of the Labour Party leadership: no votes, no motions, just extended brainstorming sessions facilitated by a Party bigwig, whose notes are passed on further up the chain of command (or chucked in the bin – who knows?). Although potentially useful discussions did take place, no decisions were taken; delegates were simply told by chairs that the Committee would ‘take contributions into consideration’. Of course, no mechanism exists for relaying the minutes of the committee back to members.
Disgusted by the lack of democratic functioning, a number of leftwing YL figures organised a “discussion for democracy” on the Sunday, an unofficial session in the cafeteria focused on democratic reforms in YL. A number of activists there argued that from this meeting another, national meeting should be organised, where motions on policy could be discussed and voted on, and some form of internal communication in YL established. Ultimately no firm plans for such a national meeting were fixed up on Sunday, but an informal ongoing national network of YL activists now exists, which is committed to democracy within the organisation, and greater political autonomy for YL. As a priority these activists should develop a means by which YL groups can communicate with each other, share experiences, and organise initiatives.

Some activists at the conference handed out a leaflet from the Socialist Campaign to Stop the Tories which argued that Labour councils should pass “needs budgets” and refuse to make cuts to jobs and services. From the reception this leaflet got, and subsequent discussions, it was clear that this was a very unfamiliar idea – it was simply not an issue which had been widely discussed in YL. Many delegates were sympathetic to the idea, outlandish as it was, when it was explained to them.

Comments

Submitted by martin on Fri, 18/02/2011 - 18:18

In a posting on the very mainstream Labour Party website Labour List, one attender describes Young Labour as: "the single most undemocratic PSE youth organisation in Western Europe".

(I think PSE here means "social-democratic", not Palestine Stock Exchange or Photosensitive Epilepsy. See Wikipedia on the abbreviation).

Shades of Tony Blair's boast to have the most restrictive labour laws in the Western world. "Not only have we presided over the worst labour laws in the western world for 13 years. We also have the worst youth organisation. Viva New Labour!"

Martin Thomas

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