James Elliottfor NEC Youth Rep

Manifesto

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A fresh start for Young Labour

Here’s why I am standing to be your National Executive Committee representative.

Hi!I’m James, a 22 year-old student from Lancaster, a proud trade unionist in Unite, and a democratic socialist.

I joined the Labour Party five years ago, the day the Liberal Democrats went into coalition with the Tories, and over the last five years we’ve seen

them destroy the futures of young people in this country.

I’ve played my part in fighting back. From standing up for students on the National Union of Students executive council, to my role as Jeremy Corbyn’s Youth Policy Adviser this summer, I have experience fighting for our values.

Whether it’s the fight for free education or the battle to save services for disabled students, I’m proud that over the last few years I’ve been at the heart of the fight back against the Tories. We desperately need a Labour government in 2020 – a Labour government in both Scotland and Wales, Sadiq Khan elected as London Mayor as well as winning council elections across England - and we need an alternative to Tory Austerity ruining our communities. Young people are bearing the brunt of the Tories’ divisive, unjust policies. We are the generation most likely to be unemployed or face benefit sanctions.

But we’re also the least likely generation to be in a trade union, or the least likely to vote, and our voice isn’t being heard as loudly as it should.

I’m standing in this election to give young people a voice on Labour’s National Executive Committee, and to stand up for the policies that will make this country a more socially just place.

On everything from housing to education, from welfare to jobs, from childcare to low pay, I want to put across the views of our young members to our National Executive Committee to get a manifesto in 2020 that wins for young people, and that Labour can win with.

I have the experience to deliver - to make sure young members are listened to.

Please read my manifesto, and my pledges to you, our membership, and if you’d like to support or get involved in my campaign, then please get in touch.

In solidarity,

James

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Labour ValuesLast summer, it was a great privilege to serve as Jeremy Corbyn’s youth policy adviser

during his leadership campaign, and personally wrote his Youth Manifesto, which was sent to all young members.

I consulted with hundreds of Young Labour members to propose policies that would make a genuine difference to young people’s lives under the next Labour government. I stand by the commitments Jeremy and I made in that manifesto, and I want to outline what I mean when I talk about Labour values, and what policies I would encourage the party to adopt.

Rights at Work.

I support the equalisation of

all rights at work for people of

all ages, and all lengths of time

worked. Your time in a job or your age shouldn’t be the determinant of your rights. I also support the GMB’s excellent £10NOW campaign to raise the minimum wage to a fair level, and USDAW’s Free-dom From Fear campaign to protect workers from harassment and Unite’s Decent Work for All campign.

Finally, I want to see a Labour government repeal the Tory

anti-trade union laws passed under Cameron and Thatcher.

Housing.

Housing is in crisis, especially for young people, with a lack of afforda-ble housing and little or no protection for renters from rogue landlords.

I want to see Labour support the

TUC Housing Charter, including controls on rents, secure three-year contracts, and a house-building programme and tough legislation to prevent revenge evictions.

To do this we need to give more

powers to councils to build new

houses to bring down the waiting list for social housing.

Education.

I have long been an advocate of free

education, and will support Jeremy Corbyn’s position of scrapping tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants - fund-ed by a small hike in corporation tax. I also believe Labour should look to reinstate an Educational Maintenance Allowance for college students, and review the

student finance system, taking into account levels of student poverty.

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Labour Values

Welfare Reform.

Young people have been disproportionately affected by the Tories’ agenda of ‘welfare reform’, which I believe Labour should be firm in our opposition to.

I have campaigned in the past with Unite Community and the NUS Disabled Students Campaign against these policies, and want to see our party take a firmer stand in opposition. We are more likely to be unemployed, and more likely to have our benefits sanctioned, than any other age group.

I want to see Labour produce genuine commitments to ending

benefit sanctions, saving the Independent Living Fund, and scrapping the Work Capability

Assessment, and ensuring a decent standard of living for all those whether in work, unemployed or disabled.

Mental Health.

Many of you reading this will, like me, have experienced a mental health crisis at one point in your life, and found that services were inadequate due to a lack of funding.

I wish to explore options to improve funding and accessibility throughout the system, and see Labour commit to ‘level’ up services across what is currently a postcode lottery of provision, take on the Tories’ hypocritical rhetoric on mental health, and demand genuine parity between physical and mental health.

The work I have done with the National Union of Students on mental health in universities and colleges, as well as personal experience, has given me the knowledge of where the faults in our system lie. I will push for the party to adopt a Young People’s

Mental Health Charter, to commit to adequate funding levels, especially in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Democracy.

We need a democratic Labour Party, where members have the opportunity to debate and decide policy among themselves, and where power is

distributed throughout the party

rather than centralised in the hands

of the leadership.

For that reason, I will support conference as the sovereign decision-making body of the party and the National Policy Forum as a vehicle for proposing policies. In my view the Parliamentary Labour Party are elected by the power and strength of the labour movement and Labour Party activists, and it is them to whom they are accountable.

Our party democracy must reflect this. For my plans for a more

democratic, accountable and

autonomous Young Labour, please see page 7.

How will I achieve this?

In order to strengthen the policies of our party in relation to young people, I propose to work on policy proposals with our NPF representatives, consult with necessary groups, present them to young members for consultation, and propose them to Young Labour Conference in a year’s time for amendment and approval. I will then raise our ideas

for inclusion in the policy process whenever the opportunity arises. Throughout, I intend to keep young members

informed of which policies I am advocating and what their democratic mandate is within Young Labour.

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My Pledges: fighting for you

The role of a National Executive Committee representative is first and foremost to represent your views to the party, that’s why I pledge to stick by what conference votes for, and push the policies we democratically decide together, and to be effective in winning good policies within the party.

Prioritising issues

that matter

to you.

My role on the NEC will be to fight for the policies that will benefit young people under a Labour government, and make young people more likely to elect that government.

As such, I aim to champion the views that young members vote on at our democratic conferences, working with the Vice-Chair Policy to raise these throughout the party, and report back to young members on how we can turn Young Labour policy into Labour Party policy.

I pledge to write up a report of

every NEC meeting, explaining my

support or opposition to every

issue discussed, and writing longer

explanations where certain issues

are contentious.

Developing a

comprehensive

Youth Manifesto.

The best people to make decisions about young people, are young people. Sometimes people may say they think we know best, but when it comes to our jobs, housing, benefits or education - I think we really do!

That’s why I pledge to develop a comprehensive Youth Manifesto for 2020, working with our National Policy Forum reps and covering all aspects of young people’s lives, working with local Young Labour groups and trade unions, where every young member will have

their voice heard.

Campaigning with

trade union youth

sections.

Trade unions are the heart of our

movement, and remain central to

everything we do.

In order to win the kind of Labour government young members deserve, we need to work much more closely with trade union youth sections, to support them on their campaigns, such as the GMB’s excellent £10NOW campaign, or UNISON’s campaign for a Living Wage in all workplaces.

If elected, I pledge to work with our

affiliated trade unions on how we can raise the profile of their campaigns within Labour, and

encourage more Young Labour

members to get involved in their

unions.

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Young Labour

Groups.

Local Young Labour groups and

Labour Clubs are at the heart of

what we do, and it’s so vital that they continue to go from strength to strength.

I’d like to explore what makes certain Young Labour groups flourish so well, and arrange for pairing and

mentoring of Young Labour groups to learn from one another.

I pledge to produce and improve

the resources we give to all our

activists and personally support anyone interested in setting up a Young Labour group in their area.

Social movements

in Labour.

One of the best aspects of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign over the summer was how it energised

thousands of young people who had never been involved in politics before, but had previously been involved in political campaigning, believing they had a home in Labour and joining our movement.

We need to continue that growth, so I pledge to work with campaigning

organisations and speak to them about how we can encourage them to become active in the Labour Party, and hold a consultation of all young

members on party engagement, to find out what we need to change and how to get the most out of our activists..

Political

Education.

There’s no avoiding the fact that hard

work and strength of numbers are

vital to any future electoral success for our party, at the local, devolved, Mayoral or General Election.

We need to find out what barriers exist to members becoming more involved in campaigning through more consultation and listening, but also provide training events for young members in political organising, so we can all be more confident in bringing about change in our communities and campaigning for Labour.

I pledge to lobby the party for the

funds to organise an annual

political school for young members, as Unite currently do to train their activists.

My Pledges: broadening our party

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My Pledges: democratisation

The leadership election last summer was a high point of democracy for our party - with hundreds of thousands of members joining and voting.

One member.

One vote.

With everyone in agreement in Young Labour that we need to introduce OMOV, and our review of democratic structures ongoing, it’s well past time that it was introduced. Without OMOV, voting rights are

restricted to those who can spend a lot of time and money on a weekend in Scarborough, which isn’t very democratic. This set of elections were supposed to take place via OMOV ballot, and I pledge to help ensure that the next

elections will be One Member One

Vote - and I will propose a timetable for implementation at my first Young Labour National Committee meeting.

Develop our

caucuses.

Our equalities caucuses have for too long been neglected by the party. We need Women, LGBT, Disabled and BAME members at the centre of policy-making and campaigning, and not simply see caucuses as an afterthought.

The first ever Equalities Academy is a fantastic step forward, but we need

to do so much more. Caucuses need to become developed, autonomous campaigns in their own right, and I will use my experience as an NUS national executive member for disabled students to help achieve that.

I pledge to try and secure more

funding for our equality groups

and raise their concerns within the party at the highest levels.

Autonomy for

Young Labour.

Democracy is only meaningful

when hand-in-hand with autonomy. For too long our youth section has been treated as foot-soldiers for the party without fully respecting our rights as members, which is especially the case for newer ones. I pledge to develop the autonomy

of Young Labour by lobbying the

party for more funding for us to run our own campaigns, decide our own policy, for local and regional groups to be able to access their own mail-lists, and where necessary, to disagree with the party leadership.

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