On Saturday the 29th of March the Socialist Youth Network (SYN) held its 3rd annual conference at the ULU building near Euston.

Unfortunately the conference was rather poorly attended with only 30 – 35 people turning up; clearly expectations had been higher as the room had been set up with 100+ chairs. This was in part due to the previous years turn out when the John4Leader campaign had been in full force in order to try to mount an effective Labour leadership bid that was eventually sold out by careerist Labour MP’s.

The meeting began with the news that Bob Crow would not be able to attend as he was in a meeting with Ken Livingston regarding the proposed RMT and TSSA tube strike. Thus the morning session was somewhat disrupted, the first six motions were rapidly and unanimously passed and we moved on to a discussion about equality and the lack there of. Nothing especially ground breaking emerged from this, just discussion about capitalism and its direct and inevitable links towards inequality within societies the world over. The conference then broke for a (slightly) early lunch.

After the break things began to pick up tempo. John McDonnell talked frankly about the previously mentioned leadership campaign discussing its successes and failings. He addressed three key issues that eventually derailed the campaign: the media blackout, the lack of support from the trade union bureaucracies and eventually the selling out of the MP’s who had pledged to support him under pressure from Brown and co. He finished by making the point that although there are a variety of issues that may divide the left there are many issues that unite the working class of Britain and worldwide and that it should be the focus of the SYN and the LRC to act on these issues immediately in order to gain recognition for the organisation.

After this followed another discussion as to the future orientation of SYN and the various campaigns it is involved in. To this end John McDonnell wrote in his blog the next day: “It came across very clearly that the politics of today and tomorrow for these young people are based upon mobilising for direct action, linking up with a wide variety of social movements, maximising creativity in protest but also engendering understanding by discussion, study and theory. The word praxis, the combination of theory and practice, was revisited and revitalised in our discussion at the SYN conference.” The debates at this point were still generally of a constructive nature and largely bypassed sectarian politics.

As we moved onto the final group of motions, after a speech by an RMT representative, the question of tactics was raised with regards to supporting independent candidates against Labour candidates. Although the motion was defeated (eleven votes to six) it was done so seemingly as now 'was not the time' for such actions. Worryingly this motion also included the possibility of splitting away from Labour and this was also disregarded with the same ‘now is not the time’ attitude rather than a rational answer. Socialist Appeal put forward a motion lending continued support to the Venezuelan revolution. This was opposed by the AWL, who take the position that there is no revolution occurring, and that this was enough to not pass a motion of solidarity with those struggling in Venezuela (they failed as it was passed by a single vote with two abstentions – a slimmer margin they we would have hoped for). 

This position led the AWL to put forward a motion named 'Defend Orlando Chirino!', the UNT leader sacked from his job at the state-owned PDVSA. The motion was a veiled attack on the Venezuelan revolution. While we oppose the sacking of trade union activists, we must ask the question why was it that the UNT was not organising itself as a real fighting trade union should do - drawing its financial support from the members it represents. The UNT collects no subs. That the AWL called for workers' organisations to be independent from the state is correct in this respect - the unions representatives should work on the same average wage as the members it represents, financed by the labour movement. Trade unions should not be financed by the state! But the way the motion was posed was a deliberate attempt to characterise the Chavez government as an enemy of the workers when it is Chirinos who has stopped the UNT entering the PSUV, appeared on platforms with the CTV (the bosses union) and called for an abstention in the 2007 referendum, effectively placing himself in the camp of the bourgeoisie. An amendment moved by Socialist Appeal that differentiated between the progressive and bureaucratic elements within the Bolivarian movement was defeated however.

In general the conference was a worthwhile affair and should be attended again in the future. While attendance was low, particularly disappointing considering the meeting took place just a few weeks after the fifth year anti-war demonstration and John McDonnell being an anti-war MP, we did manage to sell a few books and journals early in the morning which was a small bonus to the days work.

Thanks to comrades Seamus Flaherty, Hamish McLaren, Pat MacDonald, Pablo Roldan, Abner Wilders, Martin Hall and Niklas Svensson who attended the conference and helped put forward motions, intervene, sell journals and man the stalls.