Today, the Socialist Youth Network is holding its annual conference in London which I hope is a suxxess. But the harsh fact is we have a mountain to climb re- building enthusiasm amongst young people for Labour.
Back in the Dark Ages, when I was a teenager, I was a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists. To put it in perspective, Manchester alone had around a dozen active branches with probably an active membership of about 20 in each . The LPYS conference was big enough to be held in places like the Blackpool Winter Gardens and there were ( it's a long time ago so forgive the lack of exact figures) about 500 delegates. We even has our own newspaper - LEFT - paid for by the Labour Party.
The LPYS was of course closed down by Neil Kinnock on the basis it had been taken over by Militant. What a great way of winning the argument, eh. Now we have Young Labour - an anodyne apolitical organisation . SYN is a counter to that. But the basic problem is that we have so few young members. In my CLP, there is currently ONE active member under 30. I suspect that's not an isolated case. So I hope that in the coming year he will be able to recruit more like-minded youngsters . Without them, the Labour Party will die.
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