Jeremy's Report
Jeremy thanked staff for their hard work during the general election. They worked 7 days a week to ensure we got the result we did in the general and we owe them a huge amount. Labour Party membership It is great to hear membership has now reached 575,000 members. Membership often peaks after a general election and with another one around the corner it is crucial new members are welcomed into their local parties. If you are a new young member and have any questions about getting involved do get in touch, EPLP Report It is great to hear that we now have 2 new Labour MEPs after Afzal Khan and Anneliese Dodds were elected as MPs. Glenis Willmott will be retiring from being the longest serving EPLP chair in October. We all wish her the best of luck. Annual Conference I’m excited to announce that there will be a full day of youth events at annual conference on the Sunday (24th September) which would not be possible without help from the party. You can attend the Sunday at a discounted rate of just £10. You can apply here. I have been working with the NEC to make the Young Labour Annual Gathering more accessible this year with an exciting agenda featuring a Young Labour Question time, guest speakers and a reception in the evening. We discussed the proceedings for annual conference including scheduling of our 7:30am NEC meetings. Conference will take place between 23rd – 27th September in Brighton. We agreed the conference timetable, fringe events and finances in this section of the agenda. Labour annual conference is a great opportunity to meet members from across the country, debate politics and meet politicians. It's also a brilliant social event if you are a new member. If you are a new member and don't know what to expect check out my Labour Party Conference Survival Guide here. Rule changes to conference We received the rule changes that local parties have submitted to Labour Party conference. It is the job of the NEC to recommend how conference should vote (support or reject). However due to the already lengthy discussion this decision has been pushed back. Procedures to select candidates Despite the last GE being just over a month ago we must continue to look outwards. The Tories have a slim majority in the commons with the help of the DUP and this is likely to collapse in the next two years. Jeremy is committed to visiting the 40 key marginal seats between now and September to keep up the momentum from the campaign. We therefore agreed the process for selecting candidates in English marginal seats for the next general election. Party members will be able to select their candidates in the next few months, however, we must remain mindful that there is no guarantee of an early general election and this can take its toll on potential candidates (we may have 5 years to wait). In Wales and Scotland their executive committees will be responsible for drawing up a process to select candidates in the nations. The NEC will also decide which seats will be All Woman Shortlists in our September meeting. We have made huge progress getting women into the PLP but we must not stop until we have a 50/50 PLP and a 50/50 parliament. General Election 2017 Debrief Next we heard from our general election coordinators Iain Lavery and Andrew Gwynne who shared with us the GE report. It is apparent that we did much better than expected and it is vital we thank everyone involved for our successes but also to look at what went wrong. The NEC was united in congratulating Jeremy on his performance and thanking party staff for their exceptional work. We ran a hugely successful voter registration drive and I was proud to take part in a webinar with Emily Thornberry and first year student Kiran Dhaliwal to encourage young people to register to vote. In the lead up to the next general election we must continue to register students to vote and you can find the video here. Young members were vital in getting other young people to register to vote and knocking doors in the run up to polling day. I ensured the NEC knew of different events that took place and Young Labour’s contribution to the win. Thank you to all of you! Youth engagement Next, we discussed youth engagement. I'd like to thank all the young members who got in touch with me before the meeting to express the importance of resources, opportunities and funding for Young Labour. We now have 90,000 young members and it is therefore crucial that we reach out to every single new young member in our movement. I'm glad this is now on the agenda and we will be looking further into how we ensure young members are able to participate in the Labour Party. Young people came out in masses to vote Labour in this election but we cannot take that for granted. I will be meeting with the General Secretary Iain McNicol in the next few weeks to discuss what more the party can do for Young Labour. Youth Conference 2017 The NEC was then presented with a paper for the upcoming youth policy conference which will take place on October 14/15th. To be clear this was not a motion, it was a paper which requires NEC approval and is the norm for any conferences and events happening within the party. The paper outlined that delegates must be under 27 and all delegations must be gender balanced. In this paper we were given proposals of how delegations would be chosen for the NEC to discuss. I was unhappy with how this was presented to the NEC at the back end of an agenda with little consultation prior to the paper being put together. The NEC agreed that this issue needed more consideration due to the sensitivity after the Royal Report last year which looked into safeguarding young members at conference. I emphasised this point. There was also some discussion about the electoral college. I am proud of the makeup of Young Labour which gives a voice to young workers and students. It is crucial that Young Labour represents all young members in our policy making process. Young Labour policy is decided by young members only and all delegations are made up of young members (under 27). I want a strong Young Labour to ensure we get Jeremy Corbyn into no 10, which means we must be united, not falsely pitting young workers and students against each other. As always I am open to hearing young member's views on this and my email is always available. I am now working with the party to ensure young members are given a voice and that our safeguarding team is happy with the plans for conference. Please do get in touch if you have any views on the subject. National Policy Forum It is exciting to hear that our 2017 manifesto was so popular it is now on its third reprint. Thank you to those that made submissions and engaged with the NPF over the last few years. Input from young members is vital and you can still make submissions here. A report will be submitted to Labour party conference regarding the NPF activities. If you have any questions about my report or want to voice your opinions get in touch with me: [email protected] Jasmin NEC Youth Representative
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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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