Goodbye to Labour Students
Founded as the National Organisation of Labour Students (NOLS) in 1971, Labour Students has over recent years conducted itself in a way which, if it were controlled by the left, would attract daily attacks from both Labour MPs and the national press – rightly. So when the NEC last month adopted a motion proposed by Jon Lansman to remove the organisation’s status as a party affiliate, to see NOLS defended by dozens of Labour MPs was disappointing but in no way surprising.
For Wes Streeting to describe the move as motivated by a “factional vendetta”, or for Stella Creasy to describe it as an attempt to “silence [a part} of our youth movement” is an insult to those who have had their votes suppressed and their voices ignored over recent years. It is difficult to think of a section of the Labour Party that has been keener in its factionalism, or more anxious to silence the voice of its membership than Labour Students. As student members of the Labour Party, we are better off in its absence.
When the NEC motion passed, the accusations of factionalism against those in favour were widespread but ill-founded. Following several years of campaigning, Labour Students conference voted in 2016 to adopt One-Member-One-Vote for national committee elections. However, the years since have seen continued and determined efforts by a small clique to retain their grip on the NOLS, resorting to increasingly anti-democratic methods to do so - culminating in this year’s elections. University Labour Clubs (ULCs) themselves had to jump through several hoops to affiliate to the national body, as well as individual members also having to navigate unclear procedures. Even some of those who apparently jumped every hoop never received a ballot and with a voting period of less than two weeks, they had little time to protest.
This year’s elections included a slate compiled by Labour Students Left on a platform of democratising Labour Students’ procedures – they received over half of nominations from ULCs. When the results were announced (without breakdown) in March, it was therefore curious that none of Labour Students Left’s candidates had won in the seven positions for which they stood. After months of pressure, Labour Students finally published a full breakdown of results in August. They revealed that just 507 student members of the party were eligible to vote. When there are over 20,000 student members, even if you claim that NOLS weren’t acting anti-democratically, the most generous thing you can say is that they are utterly incompetent. Given the imminent general election and the crucial role that students will play in any Labour victory, we cannot rely on an organisation that has no interest in mobilising those 20,000 members effectively.
Such anti-democratic practice has no place in the labour movement, and student members of the Labour Party deserve so much better.The great work done by so many individual ULCs is largely undertaken in spite of the national organisation rather than with help from it. But this work can only be done most effectively if supported by a genuinely democratic representative organisation that seeks to grow the student community within the party, rather than preserve the power of a small minority. Such is the discontent with Labour Students as an organisation, around half of University Labour Clubs have taken the understandable step of voting to disaffiliate – no longer can NOLS claim to be the representative organisation of Labour’s student members. Instead, we look forward to its replacement by a genuinely democratic body which serves to both effectively mobilise its membership in support of the party, and to articulate the radical and transformative policies that our student membership is brimming with.
