Our NEC Away day this year was held in Glasgow. The night before the meeting the NEC heard from newly elected Scottish Labour Leader Richard Leonard, Jeremy Corbyn and Iain McNicol on the year ahead. The meeting was split into two parts, firstly we had a joint meeting with the Scottish Executive Committee before our NEC away day. Leader’s Report Jeremy and the Scottish General Secretary reported on the recent leadership results and thanked both Richard Leonard and Anas Sanwar for the way in which they conducted their campaigns. Jeremy updated the NEC on the democracy review stating he is keen for all members to be involved. The review will be held across 2018 and will be completed in phases with the first phase due to be finished by January. Finally, Jeremy talked about Labour’s position on Brexit stating that we respect the result of the referendum but we must now fight for the best deal which the Tories are struggling with. He believes that maintaining good relationships with Europe is the most important thing even when we are not officially part of the EU. Scottish Labour Leader's Report Richard Leonard addressed the NEC and SEC to speak about the importance of winning back seats in Scotland. Richard is keen to get started quickly to challenge Tory and SNP austerity whilst prioritising the mobilisation of members. Decision on the NEC Youth Representative Elections I was incredibly disappointed with how this part of the meeting was conducted. Without official consultation with members or key stakeholders it was decided that the electoral college that elects the NEC Youth Representative would be changed. The student section will be removed and the electoral college will now be 50% OMOV for the young members’ section and a 50% affiliate block vote. The idea that 100,000 members get a vote in the young members’ section is fantastic and will increase engagement in our regions and nations. However young members will have only half of the votes in deciding who their ONLY representative is on a 39 person body. Individual young members were promised to have their voices heard in the democracy review but they have been side-lined. I was told a paper would be brought to the NEC in January so I had planned to spend the next two months consulting members on this important issue. Unfortunately, after a brief discussion, the NEC rushed to a vote and with that disregarded the voices of individual members. I pushed for the change to be postponed until members were given a chance to have their say but I was denied this. To all members feeling disillusioned by this decision I am truly sorry. I fought hard to get the NEC to listen to your voices before making this decision. I know many are just as angry as I am about the rushed and shoddy changes in this election without consultation. Despite this I’ll continue to push to ensure members are able to get involved in these elections and fight for you to have your voices heard for as long as I sit on the NEC. Membership The General Secretary gave a membership update; we now have 570,000 members across the country. This growth has been spread out across marginal and Labour held constituencies. Labour has improved its gender balance with this growth in membership over the past few years which is a step in the right direction! Early selection seats We are currently selecting candidates in marginal seats in England and Wales whilst selections in Scotland are to begin soon. These early selection seats should have candidates in place by Spring 2018. Once candidates are in place campaigning and planning can begin to give us the best chance at forming a government in the next general election. It is important to remember that although a general election is more likely to come sooner due to the instability of the current government it could last a full term. We are therefore now looking at ways to support candidates who could be in place for over 4 years. Sexual Harassment We are a party of over 500,000 members so it is crucial our party is safe for everyone. The new sexual harassment policy can be found here. Since October we have seen numerous members coming forward. In light of this I thought it was important that we reacted quickly to ensure we were taking steps to tackle this huge issue. After receiving many emails from members I sent a letter to the NEC and Jeremy Corbyn to push for an independent investigation into these cases and to relook at how we tackle sexual harassment in our party. We need an independent body away from the party to ensure members feel able to come forward. I will continue to push for this in the coming months. Since then a hotline has been launched for members to call should they experience sexual harassment: 07595432542 – all incidents will be treated with confidentially or you can contact: [email protected]. Labour Students Political Weekend I gave a speech to welcome members to Liverpool at Political Weekend. In my speech I spoke about the importance of remembering the history of cities such as Liverpool which were torn apart and flung into poverty in the 1980s. These memories highlight the importance of ensuring our main priority is getting a Labour government to prevent history repeating itself. I also chaired a panel on 21st Century Trade Unionism where we had a really interesting discussion on the future of trade unionism in the modern world. I was joined by representatives from Unison, CWU, Community and the GMB giving a good mix of opinions across the panel.
If you have any questions about anything in my report please get in touch! Jasmin
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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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