OMOV is straightforward, let’s not overcomplicate it

It is refreshing, perhaps, to hear Labour Students call for OMOV – after the debacle earlier this year which saw Labour Students National Committee disallow the very same to be discussed at their Conference. What is not so pleasant are the finer details of what is being proposed, where it turns out the attractive proposition to One Member One Vote is being used as a varnish for changes within Young Labour that have no mandate.

Helena Dollimore, writing in favour of Simon Darvill’s and Finn McGoldrick’s proposals, has raised concerns that One Member One Vote would further marginalise the voices of women in our movement. The implication is that Young Labour would have to adopt a system that is similar to Helena’s own Labour Club, where women’s votes are multiplied.

Firstly OMOV is an intrinsically simple system: every member has a vote and each vote is of equal value. The system that Helena has proposed is not an OMOV system; it is a system, which, in practice, means that one member’s votes are, in any one election, worth far more than that of another. This is a system which is insupportable.

Helena’s commitment to feminism is commendable and concerns over the lack of parity between men and women members are definitely valid. But I must spell out why as a socialist feminist I cannot support any system where some votes are given more worth than others. This is actually to the detriment of women in our movement – especially since the same argument that Helena employs in favour of her system, that straightforward OMOV would lead to men’s voices being amplified, has been used by previously by Labour Students against OMOV altogether.

So let’s be blunt: For liberation, we need more democracy, more vigorously applied, not less. One of the weaknesses of feminism that is over-focused on representation is as Kollontai, a Bolshevik feminist and one of the organisers of the first International Women’s Day, eloquently explained, “The best of them believe, with a naive sincerity, that once the deputies’ seats are within their reach they will be able to cure the social sores which have in their view developed because men, with their inherent egoism, have been masters of the situation.” In the context of Young Labour, this kind of feminism is so fixated on getting representation (no doubt a worthy aim) that it forgets the people being represented. Having existing women members’ votes count more than men’s is like sticking plasters over the bullet holes of patriarchy: it does nothing to disinfect the culture of male dominance nor does it stop profuse bleeding that is a direct result of not having enough women members.

If Helena’s proposed system were to be adopted, women’s votes would not only be worth more than that of men’s but also those of non-binary people whose marginalisation needs to be addressed in the movement. It means that the votes of those oppressed on axes other than gender, such as race and disability, count less, and is thereby reducing the representation of women who face multiple of oppressions.

A feminism which gains its victories at the expense of others is not a feminism I can call my own, nor can it be a feminism which wins for all women. The end of male domination in our party can only be won from persistent struggle from below, through active efforts to recruit more women into the party, not through electoral manipulation. This can only be done by a radical alternative that makes no concession to the austerity which has devastated women’s lives.

No one, to the best of my knowledge, stood on a platform for structural change beyond OMOV, within Young Labour at the last Committee elections. Change shouldn’t be railroaded through an ‘independent’ review conducted by the Party Leadership, but should spring from the organic participation of our members; i.e. they should not just be consulted, they should be conducting the process. What this means in practice is that young people themselves should draft the vision for a more inclusive Young Labour, seek a mandate for it and then have it openly debated at conference.

A fervent yes to greater democracy, always! But no to any beast of backroom deals which comes to the masked ball as democracy.

Rida Vaquas is Young Labour Under 19s Officer