Elections are coming up for the Young Labour national committee, with primaries underway to decide which candidates are backed by Momentum. We urge readers to vote for the ‘Marxist Voice for Young Labour’ platform.
We are the Socialist Seven – a group of young workers and students running as the Marxist Voice for Young Labour platform in the upcoming Young Labour elections and Momentum primaries.
We are all proud socialists and Marxist activists, who joined the Labour Party as a result of Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing leadership.
Young people today are moving rapidly to the left, drawing radical – and even revolutionary – conclusions. But the party is moving in the opposite direction under Keir Starmer.
We are therefore standing to help build a bold socialist voice on the Young Labour National Committee and inside the wider labour movement.
For more information about our platform and programme, like our Facebook page
Click here for more information about the Momentum primaries
Click here for more information about the Young Labour elections
Important dates are:
August 21 – Deadline for applications to stand in the primaries.
August 25 – 26 – Momentum panel shortlists candidates based on their applications.
️August 28 – Voting opens
September 2 – Voting closes, and results are announced
September 27 – Labour Party nominations close
October 19 – Labour Party ballot opens
November 12 – Labour Party ballot closes
November 13 – Results announced
System change
We are entering into the deepest crisis in the history of capitalism. Working-class communities are being torn apart by a decade of slump and austerity; by the climate catastrophe; and now by the pandemic also.
It is young people and the working class who will be asked to pay for this crisis. While the super-rich get even richer, the system is broken for workers and youth.
School student protestors were 100% correct when they called for ‘system change’. And it is radical young activists who have also been at the forefront of recent struggles against racism, police violence, and a rigged education system.
? We’re the Socialist Seven – proud socialists and Marxist activists, who joined Labour as a result of Corbyn’s left leadership.
We’re standing to help build a bold socialist voice on the Young Labour National Committee. Read more about us here ?https://t.co/wacrmIrGUe
— Marxist Voice for Young Labour (@MarxistVoice4YL) August 21, 2020
Socialist programme
What is needed is a clear socialist leadership that can channel this energy into a mass movement capable of overthrowing the rotten capitalist system and transforming society along socialist lines.
This means fighting for demands such as: the nationalisation of the key levers of the economy, under workers’ control; reversing all privatisation and outsourcing; abolishing tuition fees; ending the Tory anti-trade unions laws; and opposing imperialist wars and jingoistic sabre-rattling.
We need to run society on the basis of needs, not profits. We need a socialist economic plan – involving the nationalisation of the banks, utilities, land, and major monopolies – to tackle the coronavirus crisis, the climate crisis, and the housing crisis.
It is capitalism that is responsible for all these crises. It is capitalism that is responsible for racism, oppression, and war. And it is capitalism that is robbing young people of their future. That is why our movement must fight for a bold socialist programme.
Militant opposition
Under Keir Starmer, however, Labour is moving away from this vision. The right-wing party leadership is not providing any genuine opposition to the Tories. Instead, they are paying off saboteurs, promoting Blairite careerists, waging war against the left, and capitulating to the demands of the establishment.
This must change. And Young Labour must take a lead. This means providing a militant opposition to the Tories and the Labour right wing, organising ourselves around clear socialist policies, and becoming a visible and vocal pole of attraction for radical youth.
Across the board, Labour should be linking up with workers in struggle. And Young Labour should be at the forefront of these efforts.
In recent months, strikes have broken out amongst workers in local government and in the culture sector. NHS staff are protesting over pay. And teaching unions are opposing Tory recklessness in schools. We must provide these industrial struggles with political backing, support, and solidarity.
Young workers are facing some of the harshest conditions in terms of unemployment, low pay, and precarious contracts. It is therefore vital that we have a youth wing of the Labour Party that links up with younger workers and the trade unions, in order to fight for full employment and a proper living wage for all.
Power to the grassroots
Inside the party, we must fight for power to be in the hands of grassroots activists; for open selection to ensure that MPs and councillors are accountable to members; and for an end to purges against the left.
Importantly, we must rid our movement of careerism, by demanding that we have workers’ MPs who take only an average worker’s wage. Nadia Whittome MP – the youngest Member of Parliament – has led by example in this respect.
An essential part of this is the need for a vibrant youth wing – organising young workers and students at a local level, with groups in every constituency based around dynamic campaigns and socialist political education.
Bold leadership
As young Labour members and Marxist activists, we have the experience needed to help build such a movement. We have all been active in our CLPs, helping to organise other young members as part of the climate strike protests, the Black Lives Matter protests, and recently the A-level results protests.
And as students, we have helped to build the Marxist Student Federation on our campuses, linking up with local Labour clubs during the 2019 election to run the #Students4Corbyn campaign.
For all these reasons, we are standing as a Marxist Voice for Young Labour. We encourage young Labour members and Momentum activists across the country to vote for our candidates, the Socialist Seven, so that we can provide the militant socialist leadership that workers and youth urgently need in this epoch of capitalist crisis.
Fiona Lali, Chingford and Woodford Green CLP – candidate for London regional representative
Danielle Wright, Sheffield Central CLP – candidate for Yorkshire and Humberside representative
Lewis Griffiths, Torfaen CLP – candidate for Wales representative
Hal Nickson, Manchester Gorton CLP – candidate for North West representative
Olivia Rickson, Sheffield Hallam CLP – candidate for student representative
Kieran Lee, Hove CLP – candidate for student representative
Harry O’Neil, Cheadle CLP – candidate for under-18s representative
