Young Labour is the youth section of the UK Labour Party. Membership is automatic for Labour Party members aged 14 to 26.[1]
It exists to involve young people in the Labour Party and ensure that the aspirations of young people are reflected in Labour's policies in power. Young Labour members are able to get involved in the Labour Party through local policy events, campaigning or by attending events and social gatherings.
Young Labour hosts an annual conference, alternating between national committee elections and policy conferences every other year. Young Labour also holds a range of additional national events, including fringe sessions at the annual Labour Party Conference.
Throughout much of the 20th century, younger members of the Labour party were represented first by the Labour League of Youth and later by the Labour Party Young Socialists. These organisations often positioned themselves on the left of the party and frequently had a difficult relationship with its leadership. The latter of these groups went into decline in the late 1980s after reforms were made to make it more manageable and closed down entirely in 1991.[2][3]
In October 2017, Young Labour passed a motion at their annual conference which called for Britain to withdraw from NATO.[4][5]
In May 2018, the organisation started a digital campaign against then-Labour MP Chuka Umunna after it was revealed that he employed university students to be unpaid interns. The campaign, "#PayUpChuka', led to the Labour leadership briefing the Parliamentary Labour Party that employing unpaid interns runs contrary to Labour's 2017 general election manifesto.[6]
In October 2018, Young Labour voted to make Brazilian labour leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva its honorary president.[7]
On 25 February 2022, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer scrapped Young Labour's annual conference in response to activists from the youth section criticising his backing for NATO during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[8] The tweets from earlier in February condemned Starmer for his "celebrating" of closer cooperation with NATO while he was also "attacking Stop the War and other pro-peace activists."[8] Some of the statements from Young Labour were cited as follows:
"Nato's acts of aggression both historical and present are a threat to all of our safety"[8]
"Stoking up tension, macho posturing & trying to 'out do' the Tories on hawkish foreign policy will only lead to further devastation, loss of life and displacement of people across the world"[8]
It was also announced that Young Labour's funding would be cut in response to the comments, whilst its Twitter account was restricted by the party for what was described as breaches of acceptable "standards of behaviour".[8][9][10] The move was condemned as bullying by Young Labour's elected chair Jessica Barnard, who also said it may drive young people away from Labour.[8] An article from The Canary dubbed the move "Keir Starmer's latest authoritarian crackdown."[11] The Labour party's shadow foreign secretaryDavid Lammy described Young Labour's views as "lazy knee-jerk" anti-Americanism and said that "They don't speak on behalf the party."[10]
The crisis between Labour leadership and its youth wing came to an end in 2024, when candidates of the "Organise" faction, backed by Labour First and Progressive Britain, won the overwhelming majority of seats in the Young Labour National Committee, defeating the more left-wing "Socialist Future" faction; the "Organise" candidate, Jack Lubner was subsequently elected new chair and Lula da Silva was stripped from the title of honorary president.[12][13] This caused controversy, as Lubner is the son of Gary Lubner, a major donor to the Labour Party.[14]
Membership
Members of the Labour Party aged 14 to 26 are automatically members of Young Labour.[15]
Structure
Young Labour National Committee
The Young Labour National Committee acts as the executive of the organisation. It includes a chair, the National Executive Committee (NEC) youth rep, an international officer, an under-18s representative, four liberation officers, 10 trade union reps[a], three National Labour Students reps, one socialist society rep, 11 national and regional reps, and the chair of the Co-operative Party Youth Committee. In addition, the Labour Party appoints a permanent secretary to act as non-voting facilitator, and the National Policy Forum youth reps appoint a vice chair (policy).[16]
Chair of Young Labour
Between 1991 and 2009, the Chair of Young Labour was appointed by the Labour Party.[citation needed] Reforms passed by the Labour Party's annual conference saw the creation of a democratically elected chair, voted for by delegates at Young Labour's national conference, to serve a two-year term. The first election took place in 2009.[citation needed] In late 2017, the Labour Party's NEC changed the system so that the Chair of Young Labour is elected by a one-member-one-vote ballot of young members.[17] It was reported that over 7,000 young members voted in the 2018 election.[18]
Delegates at Young Labour's national conference also elected the Youth Rep to sit on the Labour Party's NEC. The election operated under an electoral college, with a third of the vote for young member delegates, a third for Labour Students delegates, and a third for delegates from affiliated trade unions and socialist societies.
For the 2018 election, the system was changed, with half of the vote allocated to young members through a one-member-one-vote ballot and half allocated to block votes by affiliated trade unions and socialist societies.[17]
Young Labour groups exist at the local, regional, national, and international level, supporting the activity of the wider Labour Party and feeding in to Young Labour through its national committee.
^ ab"Archived copy"(PDF). www.younglabour.org.uk. Archived from the original(PDF) on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 17 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
