Yes, we need a new Labour Students

Submitted by Matthew on 25 September, 2019 - 10:38 Author: Maisie Sanders
LS

On 17 September, Labour’s National Executive Committee voted to disaffiliate its student wing, Labour Students.

The motion proposed by Momentum founder Jon Lansman said that Labour Students did not meet the requirements set out in Labour’s rulebook for its national student organisation and called for a new one to be set up “urgently”.

Dozens of Labour Clubs disaffiliated from Labour Students after its February national conference, where the leadership gerrymandered the system to block left-dominated clubs attending or voting in internal elections.

Out of Labour’s 20,000 student members, only 59 attended the conference and only 507 voted in elections online.

Swathes of clubs and members were excluded due to a lack of information about the long and complicated process of affiliating their club to Labour Students, which must be repeated every year. Many who completed the process never received their ballot paper.

Students at universities and colleges with smaller, non-existing or inactive Labour Clubs were not able to participate at all.

Unsurprisingly, right-wing candidates won almost a clean sweep of positions, despite the left winning overwhelmingly in nominations from clubs. The left candidate for Yorkshire and the Humber lost to “Reopen Nominations”, despite running unopposed.

The right wing candidate for Vice Chair Campaigns and Policy beat the left candidate despite receiving only six club nominations to the latter’s thirty-one.

Labour Students has long been tightly controlled by the party’s right wing. If anything it has become narrower rather than broader since 2015. Despite the Corbyn surge in left-wing student membership, it still functions as a revolving door for careerists to become Labour MPs in safe seats.

It spurns campaigning on student issues such as fees, cuts or rent in favour of organising occasional canvassing sessions. It does occasionally host sparsely-attended blocs on national demonstrations, but it does nothing to build these in Labour Clubs.

Its most recent “political conference” in October 2018 had no debates or votes on politics or campaigns. Its organisers enlisted venue staff to prevent Student Left Network activists from handing out copies of their bulletin because it criticised the nationalism of Remembrance Sunday.

So a new Labour Students organisation is indeed needed.

It must lead the fight for free education and grants, rent controls for student halls, opposition to cuts and supporting workers’ struggles. It must campaign for a radical Green New Deal, freedom of movement and migrants’ rights and against Brexit. It should also play a role in relating to further education and postgraduate students.

It needs conferences twice a year, with plenty of time for political debate and votes on policy and campaigns. No students must be priced out of attending by extortionate ticket costs, and all Labour Clubs must be able to follow a simple and clear process to affiliate nationally and send elected delegates. Elections should be conducted via STV so political tendencies have fair representation.

Merging Labour Students and Young Labour, an option suggested by the 2017 Democracy Review, is not adequate. What about the hundreds of thousands of mature students who would not qualify for Young Labour? What about campaigning on specific student issues? Instead Labour Students should exist alongside a well-funded, democratic and autonomous Young Labour.

Whatever structures are decided, the Labour Party must put resources into helping and encouraging members to set up Labour Clubs in their colleges and universities, and for those which already exist to become hubs of debate and campaigning, with regular meetings.

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