Saturday Women’s conference Saturday is the day before national conference proceedings begin where all self defining women in the Labour Party meeting for our annual conference. It’s was a great day packed with celebration, remembrance and fantastic speakers. Reclaim the Internet panel During women’s conference I was on a panel along with Yvette Cooper MP, Melantha Chittenden (LGBT+ officer at NUS) and Sam Smethers. I shared my experiences of abuse online after my election to the NEC along with the daily abuse I get from trolls on twitter, via email and on my personal Facebook. There were fantastic contributions from the floor with women from across the party sharing their own experiences of online abuse. The amount of women who shared stories from when they stood for an election, internally or externally, and experiencing harassment and abuse was extremely distressing. Holding an elected representative to account should never amount to abuse, which is something I have unfortunately found myself repeating too often. NEC meeting That evening we had a full NEC meeting at the conference centre where we discussed the rules going to conference. We confirmed that the rule changes we had voted on to allow Scotland and Wales a place on the NEC would go to conference, I was proud to have voted for this and proud to say it passed through conference along with all of the other rule changes the NEC submitted. Sunday Young member’s day On Sunday when full conference starts Young Labour has its annual gathering alongside conference proceedings. I helped to run the day of events. Welcoming young members We firstly welcomed the Young members who had travelled from near and far to be at our annual gathering. My role was to welcome young members and present them with a quick 15 minute presentation about what Young Labour it is, the types of things we do and how they could get involved. Next, I introduced Iain McNicol, general secretary of the Labour Party. As usual Iain was fantastic at engaging the young members in the room and young members had the opportunity to ask him questions. Question time After this we moved on to our Young Labour Question Time featuring panellists, Cat Smith (Shadow Minister for youth affairs), Ayesha Hazarika (former adviser to Ed Miliband) and Martin Edobor (Chair of the Young Fabians). It was a great session giving young members the chance to ask panellists questions. Frances O’Grady We then had a short break and were joined by General Secretary of the TUC, Frances O’Grady. I was honoured to chair this session for young members as Frances is a huge inspiration to me. All Labour affiliated trade union’s general secretaries are men, so it’s great to see Frances leading the way for women in the trade union movement. She talked about important issues such as sexual harassment in the workplace and moving into a modern working world which touches upon issues in the Workplace 2020 campaign in the Labour Party at the moment. Young members had the opportunity to field questions to Frances. Young Labour reception The Young Labour reception was later that evening where young members could enjoy a drink (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and time to chat to fellow young members. I introduced general secretary Iain McNicol to come and talk to the reception, along with Cat Smith MP. In his speech Iain talked of the youth paper I took to the NEC the week before which focusses on training and resources for young members (find it here : http://jasminbeckettnec.weebly.com/nec-reports/nec-youth-review-update-tuesday-20th-nec-meeting) I’m really looking forward turning this paper into action for Young Labour. Anti-semitism rally On Sunday evening it was a privilege to speak at the Jewish Labour Movement anti-Semitism rally. I spoke about the previous NEC meeting where I was proud to vote for rule changes to allow our party to be able to tackle anti-semitism more adequately and with clearer guidance. Week after week I get emails from Jewish members who no longer feel safe or welcome in our party and it was so important for me personally to speak at this rally to show solidarity with Jewish members in our party. Huge well done for JLM for organising and all of the work they are doing on this important issue in our party. Monday NEC meeting – 7:30am At 7:30am on Monday morning I attended an NEC meeting where we agreed a statement of 10 key priorities for the Labour Party which the leader’s office had agreed and written. I was happy to agree these aims. Young Councillors training After some much needed breakfast I went along to chair the Young Labour Councillors Training session with guest panellists Matthew Patrick, Samantha Jury-Dada and Gemma Welsh. CWU reception My trade union held its reception on Monday evening, it was great to hear general secretary Dave Ward speak about the future of the union and meet up with some CWU friends. Always the best reception of the conference (not biased)! Tuesday CLP Youth Officers training On Tuesday morning I presented a Young Labour CLP Youth Officers training, I talked young members through the different challenges to expect and how to overcome obstacles. It’s really useful to talk to young members about the difficulties they have faced when taking on such roles so we can help with this. In light of the workshop and my paper that I passed through the NEC I’m working with the Labour Party to create resources for young members who are looking to take on the role of a CLP youth officer. To do this I want your input, so if there is anything you would like to see from these resources send ideas to: [email protected] Labour students panel After sitting in the conference hall for the morning I spoke at the Labour Students event launching their new priority campaign “A Million More Voices” aiming to get students across the country signed up to register to vote after the government has made it harder to join the electoral register. I spoke about my own personal experience living with students who didn’t sign up to the electoral register and ways I think we can tackle this. I also spoke about priority campaigns in general and how myself and the Labour Students officers can help young members set up their own ‘Million More Voices’ campaigns in their universities.
Education panel After the Education and Children debate in the conference hall I was on a panel at the Education and Children policy seminar which members were invited to discuss policy with members of the commission. I was on a panel with shadow education minister, Angela Rayner MP. It was great to hear what members want from the commission and talk about how best we feel the Labour Party could tackle the Tories on education and their regressive policies, particularly with grammar schools. NEC meeting After a full day I had one final NEC meeting. It was great to welcome new NEC members but incredibly sad to say goodbye to some exceptional NEC members, in particular Johanna Baxter and Ellie Reeves, two strong women who have helped me so much since I became a member of the NEC. We also said goodbye to the formidable Ann Lucas and Denis Skinner. Glenis Willmott MEP was elected chair of the NEC and Andy Kerr (CWU) was elected Vice Chair. We also thanked Paddy Lillis who has been a fantastic chair in a tough year for the Labour Party. It was also great to welcome Kezia Dugdale and Carwyn Jones as Scottish and Welsh rep onto the NEC. I was proud to vote for Scotland and Wales to have representation on the NEC and it was great to have them take up their seats that evening. Wednesday Leaders speech Finally, on Wednesday we got to hear the leader Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to conference. It was great to hear Jeremy speak about how we are going to take our message to the country, which is ultimately the most important thing we need to be focussing on as a party. In true Labour Party conference style, we finished with a rendition of Jerusalem and the Red Flag before the close of #Lab16! If you have any questions about my report please feel free to email me: [email protected]
Jasmin NEC Youth Rep
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I'll be doing a full NEC monthly report soon but just a quick update on Tuesday's NEC meeting for young members:
I expressed my disappointment that a Youth Review paper was not brought to the NEC by the Chair of the youth strand after months of consultation with young members. Cancelled meetings and postponing the process gave me no option other than to create and circulate my own youth paper to the NEC based on young members responses to the youth consultation. Whilst every other strand circulated their paper and spoke to it during the meeting, the youth paper was pushed back and ignored. After 3 hours, I eventually spoke on my paper expressing my huge frustration that young member's concerns are being kicked into the long grass again. After further discussion at the meeting, I am proud to announce that the NEC supported the youth paper I created (below) which enshrines events, training and resources for young members from CLPs to Young Labour groups. There was no formal vote on this as, (against my wishes), it has again been pushed back to an away day in the near future. I'm proud to be putting young members as my priority and fighting for their voices to be heard on our NEC and when it comes to the away day young member's responses to the discussion process if what I will be fighting for. This is just the start (hence no huge rule changes in my paper below), and the discussion will continue with the NEC at an away day in the next few months where I will continue to fight for young members voices. But for now I will deliver on the training, resources and events for Young Labour mentioned in my paper, fulfilling the pledges you elected me on. |
AuthorHere are my Monthly NEC Youth Rep reports and my full NEC meeting reports, starting from March 2016 I'll keep this updated so you know what's going on. Archives
January 2018
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