NEC Statement from Caspar Chatham: ‘It’s time to make young members matter on the NEC’

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This is the first of those statements.

“It is a time of change in our Labour Party.”

This is the line that will be repeated by every journalist and politician over the coming months – and for good reason. For all the merits Keir Starmer once offered, Starmerism has run its course. It has left us at sea in the polls, staring down defeat while rearranging the deckchairs with rejected ideas. A change in our government is needed, a change in our party is needed- and with a recent welcome return from exile, that change will inevitably come.

But for young members, that change has been needed for far too long. 

I joined the Labour Party the day after my 17th birthday. Growing up in a little rural village outside Stansted Airport, I didn’t come from a particularly political family. The Labour candidate who stood in the general election three years beforehand won 14%, and the nearest friendly councillor was the best part of ten miles away. I joined not because I was born into our movement, but because of one simple fact: I saw our party as the only option to meaningfully change and improve people’s lives. I know thousands of our young members will have similar stories.

Those young members may also be familiar with what happens next. Often, we’re in the single figures in our local parties so we reach out to others. Perhaps there’s an attempt at forming a branch of Young Labour (of which new ones have been in the single figures since my membership began) or a new university Labour society (of which there are fewer than when I started university). And inevitably, there are issues – travel funds for campaign days running out, group chats where nothing is discussed, promises that are seemingly forgotten as soon as they’re made. And wherever we turn, there’s a useful reason (or an excuse) from someone more ‘senior’ or ‘better-connected’ as to why these things don’t – and can’t – work.

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The explanation for this is as bleak as it is clear. When young members turn up to knock doors or hand out leaflets, they matter. But when it comes to the serious questions of what our party is for and who it stands for, we get sidelined as quickly as we’re accepted. Our party, fundamentally, does not work the way it is meant to for us – because young members don’t matter when they don’t need to.

The only thing that does seem to work, interestingly, is the messages asking you to vote for handpicked candidates in internal elections. 

So I’m running in one of them to change that equation – and to make members matter again. 

The NEC is often distant, if not irrelevant, for young members. We only have one dedicated Youth Rep on there – and when the NEC makes the headlines we know it’s normally for the wrong reasons. It controls nearly every aspect of our party from chequebooks to candidate panels – but that also means it has the power and potential to make young members matter. So who occupies our spot on there matters – and that’s why I’m running to be your next Youth Rep.

As Youth Rep, I’ll use the power you give me to make our party work for you. 

Naturally, I’ll make sure to stand for what young members believe in. I’ll oppose the short-sighted and damaging EHRC guidance. I’ll support open candidate selections for every single CLP. I’ll push for that meaningful break from the neoliberal consensus we fought against in 2024. 

Even more so, I’ll stand for what young members need – travel funds for every region and nation, Young Labour contacts in every constituency and a comprehensive strategy to overtake our opponents in numbers online and offline by 2028. After all, we had 100,000 young members after our worst defeat since 1935. Why can’t we get half of that after our biggest victory since 2001? 

Many in our party will tell us you cannot have both power and principles. I’m standing because young members want – and deserve – the option for both. 

We won’t change people’s lives if we can’t communicate and create the change they need. For both of those things, members need to matter in a party that enables them – and enabling that is my only agenda, every single time. I’ll only be your Youth Rep as long as I keep that promise!

So you’ll get a ballot this summer. On it, there will be two options. You’ve just heard all about one. And the other? Well, they’ve been on the NEC since before my membership began- and now, I’m writing this article about it… 

It is a time of change in our Labour Party. That change needs to come. But that change starts here. Vote me on the NEC, and that change starts now. 

Let’s make members matter.

READ MORE: 

Labour To Win statement
Mainstream Statement
Momentum NEC statement
Restoration NEC statement

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