Lauren Harper and Will Tillotson: SEC Update – Radical Future

The first term of the Radical Future youth representatives was one in which we can look back at several key successes. One that particularly stands out is the case in which we got a young activist their money back, including compensation for a loss of shifts, after their conference pass was revoked on the day of the Liverpool conference in October. We also had a selection process halted and restarted after another young activist was told they were ‘too young’ when they didn’t make the longlist.

With that in mind it was also an incredibly enlightening experience, we quickly found that SEC meetings are incredibly general and that most business occurred in sub-committee meetings. To get on one of these elusive sub-committees you would first have to receive a call from James Kelly — John Paul McHugh has invited us to none since taking up post. This presented a couple of challenges, for one Coll was never invited to any sub-committees. Lauren was however invited on to the organisation, womens, general election and most interestingly the selections sub-committee. In regards to the selections sub-committee Lauren received one email about this and was never asked to sit on any panel. It later transpired that it was a mistake that she was invited on to it in the first place. Despite raising the issue for almost two years Lauren never received links to meetings for the women's sub-committee, an indictment of the Labour party’s claims that it wishes to have more young women involved.

The issue of young women's involvement in the party and the wider movement is one in which we as socialists must reckon with. Lauren chose to re-stand on the basis that as an incumbent whoever stood with her would have the benefit of the strong record left by Coll and herself, but also because there are very few active young women on the left and this would make finding someone who wanted to do it very difficult.

We found that getting on the ballot in the first place was much more convoluted than it should have been. Though we had secured over forty nominations, we were only allowed to submit fifteen, no more, no less. One of our nominators decided at the last minute to withdraw their nomination and we might have ended up falling short of the fifteen if we didn’t have plenty kept aside. It would have been better practice to follow the process used in Young Labour and Labour Students elections, and set a minimum number of nominations for candidates, not a maximum. But the real shock came when the Party announced that Lauren had not made the ballot and, as the only validly-nominated woman, one of our opponents had been duly elected. After a flurry of exasperated emails it emerged that there had been a technical error, and Lauren was restored to the ballot.

“How did this happen?” is a question we will not likely ever get the answer to, but clearly the system used this time was not suitable. As young members who are trying to engage with the democratic processes of the Party, it can be really discouraging when the most basic aspects of the election system let us down. We focused our campaign on five points: transparency, representation, record, organisation and solidarity. Publishing regular SEC reports was a proud theme of our last term and we looked to increase transparency by holding pre-SEC youth forums where members can have their say.

Sticking up for young members who were sidelined by party processes was a key aspect of our pitch, with members responding well to our record in that area. Our proven record of principled representation was a great benefit, and Lauren’s position as an incumbent lent itself to a sense of continuity. An ongoing issue for Scottish Young Labour is its lack of access to membership lists, which means it is unable to contact young members about getting active (indeed, most people we phonebanked were not remotely involved in the party)—this is despite the fact that we as candidates were allowed full access to members’ data in order to canvass them. How is it right that candidates are allowed data to seek election, but the elected officers of SYL are deprived of that same data with which to rally its own members? It sends a message that we are only interested in members’ time when they can give us votes in internal elections. By far the biggest achievement of the campaign, was phonebanking every single member of Scottish Young Labour. While it was an arduous process, it was genuinely rewarding to speak to everyone we were standing to represent and it gave us a very good idea of the issues that mattered to young members. The number one issue, which was raised numerous times, was Palestine.

We had several emotional conversations with young members who were on the edge of leaving the Party out of shame at our failure to act against genocide in Gaza. We reassured them that Radical Future had stood up for membership democracy in the past and ensured Scottish CLPs would be allowed to pass pro-ceasefire motions after Party General Secretary David Evans sent a disgraceful missive which left members in doubt over whether support for Palestine would put them at risk of disciplinary action. Overall many of the people we talked to were those who felt disaffected by the party but were encouraged by the opportunity for us to renew our independent, socialist youth voice on the governing body of Scottish Labour. As hyper-active party activists we don’t often put ourselves in the shoes of ordinary members. It’s hard to blame young people, who are continuously disappointed by party policies and are only ever contacted by those who want to use their votes for self-gain, when they lose faith in Labour as a force for change. So as we look towards the next two years of an equivocating, u-turning Labour Party, representatives who are not afraid to speak up for young members are more important than ever.

Lauren Harper & Will Tillotson were CFS-backed candidates for SEC Youth Rep.