Labour Students and Young Labour: it’s time for OMOV

This weekend, nearly a hundred Labour Students are meeting in Manchester for our annual political weekend. Our youth movement is one of the best bits of our party; committing countless hours to campaigning, lobbying for socially progressive change within the party when others have lagged behind, injecting Labour values into our students’ unions and attracting the young people who will be dedicated members and activists their whole lives.

Our campaigning can really make the difference in marginal seats across the country. Many of us were here in Manchester just a few weeks ago for the crucial Heywood and Middleton by election, and this weekend we’ve pledged to spend 10,000 hours on the #labourdoorstep before the General Election. Our monthly campaign days have been making PPCs thousands of contacts. We’ve led the way in calling for progressive changes in Labour policy, being in favour of all-women shortlists before it was fashionable and championing LGBT rights for decades. In our students’ unions we’ve successfully lobbied for the living wage to be paid to university staff and banned payday lenders from campuses.

It’s paramount that such an important section of our party is as open and democratic as possible; it’s only through transparent and fair structures that we will attract the best young activists. Just as old boys’ networks hamper society’s progress, some members feeling they have little influence in who represents them, or feeling unable to stand for election, only limits what we can achieve as a youth movement.

For those who don’t know, Labour Students and Young Labour make up the youth wing of the party: the former for university, college and FE students, and the latter for all young members under 27. Currently, most elections for the youth wing are conducted via a delegate system at youth conference. It’s time to move to a system of one member, one vote (OMOV).

With the internet now a part of our daily lives, an OMOV system is much more achievable than a postal ballot might have been a decade ago. Just as the whole party is moving to a system of OMOV as a result of the Collins Review, now is the time for Young Labour and Labour Students to follow suit.

It’s crucial that we make this transition to OMOV as part of an open conversation with members. As a passionate feminist, the last thing I would want is for the women of our youth movement to become even more disenfranchised with the move to an OMOV system. At the moment, men far outnumber women in our membership. But this should not be a barrier to greater democracy. The solutions to this problem, as well as those of other liberation groups and our nations, should be explored in an open and independent consultation as the Chair of Young Labour, Simon Darvill, and Chair of Labour Students, Finn McGoldrick, have recently called for.

By making our structures more democratic and reflective of the values that make us Labour, we can only move forward. The young people who make the decision to join Labour should be welcomed into our party and encouraged to become active members, especially given how unusual it is to be politically engaged and take that big step.

But Labour is and will always be the real home of young people. Now let’s embrace reform and begin to build a stronger youth movement.