Young Labour: Set free not held back

Following Friday’s story about the selection of London Young Labour delegates for Youth conference, both of the candidates for Young Labour chair have written for us on the lessons to be learned – and what needs to change.

Susan Nash says this is an opportunity to reform our structures.

As a candidate for Chair of Young Labour I have enjoyed taking my message to young members and setting out my vision to ‘lead a new generation for change’. No more so than this week: I have been helping to organise a lobby of parliament to save EMA, visiting students in Staffordshire, and mobilising activists for the TUC rally on youth unemployment, which is taking place in Manchester next week.

Yet unfortunately instead of being able to my free time speaking to young members about my campaign to reform Young Labour much of this week has been spent dealing with the consequences of our outdated and ineffective democratic structures – as was reported on Labourlist on Friday.

Like nothing else, this makes the case for investment and staff dedicated to Young Labour. We need the investment we were promised during the leadership election and at conference this year. Is a youth officer too much to ask?

This month in Oldham we saw what Young Labour members can achieve when they work together for change. I, like you, want to be out recruiting new members to our party, exposing the hypocrisy of the Lib Dems and taking the on this Tory-led government. But to do so effectively Young Labour needs to be set free not held back. A youth officer is not a convenient job title but vital for rebuilding our party. With a youth officer in place, these problems could have been avoided; information properly communicated and we could have averted the confusion we witnessed with the process to elect London Young Labour delegates. It’s not like this hasn’t been coming for two years nor the first time this process has been run?

Rather than apportion blame, it’s important that reformers in the youth movement see this as an opportunity to reform our structures – to make us more effective. That’s one of the reasons why I want to be Chair of Young Labour.

If elected next month, there will be a step change in how Young Labour operates. I will kick start a national strategy to revitalise Young Labour groups, giving support to existing groups and guidelines for new groups to blossom. Elections may only come about every two years in Young Labour, but if elected, from day one I will immediately start to communicate to members how they can get involved, stand for positions and take a lead in shaping their party.

There is an urgent and desperate need for resources and reform – the time is now.

Susan Nash is a candidate for Young Labour National Chair. Her website is http://www.nash4yl.co.uk