The future is bright for Young socialists

By Thomas Pearce -

The 14th-15th October was the annual Young Labour policy conference, this time held in Warwick. As the mainstream media attention is set to pounce on the policy most widely perceived to be most electorally toxic (I expect NATO), there will be little discussion over the radical positions taken at the weekend. The internal process of Labour adopting policy positions is long and bureaucratic, a product of top down decision making in the 90’s and 2000’s. Passed policies at this conference now go to the national policy forum to be discussed (or to the most cynical amongst us, watered down beyond all recognition.) Then they will need to be rubber-stamped by a future Labour conference. So, despite the headlines, its unlikely initial passed policies will make the next manifesto wholly unaltered. Even those that do pass, won’t be policy for at least a year.

No, the main news transmitted is of the growing maturity of the Corbyn surge that took place in two separate periods- the original leadership election in 2015 and in the aftermath of the Brexit vote in 2016. The Young Labour membership is now 90,000 strong; compared with the Tory party of 100,000 members, this is a vast campaigning force.

In my own area of the South West, this surge didn’t translate to the last Labour conference in Scarborough 2016 in any organised way. The first tranche of idealistic Corbynistas were still finding their collective feet in the despair of a rulebook that drained all enthusiasm (not much has changed on that front!). At that conference, there was a finely balanced contest between the Labour left and the Labour centrists. The Labour chair was won by Caroline Hill, a Corbynista, and the NEC Young Labour rep won by Jasmin Beckett, a centrist. Roll forward to 2017, and it is a completely different contest.

Firstly, the lack of experience has been overcome. Momentum has now begun co-ordinating left slates for elections, which has helped concentrate votes. There has been a growing blogosphere (extremely effective at the general election) which is prepared to promote candidates outside of the momentum members email bubble. First bewildered by the internal bureaucracies, young Corbynistas are now familiar with the Labour party furniture. They are also disgusted by it. Motivated by a combination of member empowerment and radical policies, they have both the organisation and the ideas to transform Labour.

Secondly, the 2017 general election itself has lifted previous baggage. 1983 is seen in the context of the birth of neoliberalism without the downsides of privatisation manifested. The Falklands war and the SDP split also were understated, whereas “the longest suicide note in history” overstated. The left of Labour is confident in a way that hasn’t been seen in the lifetime of its young members. The establishment is reeling over Brexit, the political clout of social media and the reintroduction of nationalisation into the political mainstream, all within two years. Naomi Klein’s shock doctrine does indeed exist; and currently it petrifies the Tories, the IMF and OBR. The Overton window is shifting before our eyes as politicians and journalists wildly recalibrate to current popular public sentiment. In Bristol, the election also bought together disconnected strands of a burgeoning young socialist group within Labour- A youth momentum group forming in the aftermath of the general election.

Before the allegiance of the NEC shifted to the left recently (National executive committee, please google!) new shackles on the Young Labour left were supposedly put in place. An electoral college of delegate split evenly between unions, young members and labour students was imposed, reducing the democratic power of Young Labour in favour of Labour students; who may or may not be signed up Labour members. The Young Labour national committee expressed their outrage:

“We are in a situation where Young Labour members, entitled to 101 delegates out of 303, will be a minority at their own conference to decide their own policy. We note that this is a much smaller number of delegates than at previous conferences, including Young Labour Conference in 2016. Instead of our conferences becoming larger and more inclusive to reflect our growing membership, young members are being shut out of participation in our organisation’s democratic structures.”

Seemingly though, this hasn’t curtailed the left’s energy. In a forerunner to the Young Labour conference in February, the youth policy conference still voted in favour of radical left proposals. Imposition of capital controls, nationalising the banks and leaving NATO are not policies you’d expect to pass at a conference with a subdued left. The financial crisis, quantitative easing of £435bn to banks and the UK’s ruinous military excursions abroad have come home to roost.

This isn’t to say there aren’t caveats. The attempt to remove the barriers currently attached to UK’s “freedom of movement” failed; and with it there is a sense that isolationist socialism currently prevails over international solidarity. “Freedom of movement was created by capitalists, for capitalists” is an unsurprising viewpoint for those whose pay has been undermined, by corporations recruiting abroad to undercut wages. However, would a Corbyn government allow this exploitative practice to continue? The demand and supply of labour may presume lower wages is inevitable with free movement, but Labour state investment can more than compensate for this; by investing in education and environmentally sustainable jobs to attract and create high quality jobs and increase supply by more than demand. If the political will continues to hold, nationalisation and automation could sustain both free movement and increase leisure into the future.

Remember, large-scale immigration from the West Indies in the 1950s did not lead to a weakening of workers’ rights because of the Keynesian economic consensus. Overall, workers’ rights continued to be strengthened, as did workers’ pay until neoliberalism started in the late 70’s. Immigrants themselves campaigned tirelessly on rights, leading to the 1965 and 1968 race relations act. As we continue to campaign for a more equal and redistributive economic system, we should remember this and reflect this in our policy.

Where do we stand? Well, for young socialists such as myself, we are full of confidence for the future battles. October’s policy conference has solidified our belief that Young Labour is firmly on the left. Now we aim to build links with and get involved in the trade union and student movements, bypassing the attempts to side-line our movement. Democratising the party for those who follow us. And delivering a country for the many, not the few.