REPORT FROM THE YOUNG LABOUR CONFERENCE
Scarborough 9-10 July 1999
Woolas: 'No Mowlam: Murphy: Blair:
control Optimism 'Don't Disapointing
freakery' knock us'
As an unnoficial delegate from Leeds North East (ie. without the
backing of the Constituency Labour Party), I managed to slip my
way through the tight security net for admision to the 1999 Young
Labour Conference by filling in an application form. Only six
weeks after joining the Party, my 'credentials and documentation'
arrived from Millbank, proclaiming me as Delegate number 236,
along with invitations to various fringe meetings and a large
fold-out poster with the word PARTY writ large along the top,
apparently celebrating the social, rather than the political
face of Young Labour. Alternatively, it was actually a standard
poster which could be used by any political grouping and they had
forgotten to write the word LABOUR in. The only concession to
ideology was the placing, in small type, above the picture of
what where either clubbers in Ibiza or young people staring into
a bright new dawn placing their eyesight at serious risk, of the
revised Clause 4 mantra that By the strength of our common
endevour we achieve more than we achieve alone. Almost a
vindication of the public sector, but not quite. Thus, on the
9th of July I took the (delayed, privitised)train (without
catering facilities due to the failure of a private company) to
Scarborough.
The cat was let rather out of the bag concerning the 'Special
Guest Speaker', since the Spa Complex was crawling with numbers
of police and secret service men which are warranted only by the
imminent arrival of either the Prime Minister or the Northern
Ireland Secretary. Following a thorough bag search and being
berated for not paying my £1 membership fee by Direct Debit, I
was admited to the rather dreary Ocean Room, with specially
constructed podium declaring that the next hundred years start
here and that our ideas where the party's future. Quarter of an
hour late, National Youth Chair Geoge Tatch welcomed us and
introduced Phil Woolas MP (Rochdale East &
Saddleworth), the party's campaign co-ordinater and staunch New
Labourite. Having run through the standard list of Labour's
achievements and berated the party for the poor Euro-Election
Results, he launched into a denial of Millbank control-freakery
and an attack on press criticism of the government, including the
following semi-amusing story:
'Tony Blair is sitting on the terrace of the House of Commons
when he sees John Prescott on the other side of the river. He
says to his aide that he needs to talk to John about their little
disagreements over the public sector, climbs over the parapet and
walks across the river, because he can do that. He has his
meeting with Prescott and then walks back. The next day The
Guardian carries a banner headline which says: PM FAILS
TO SWIM RIVER.
After a parting plea to back the government from Phil Woolas,
we move quickly on to the section enigmatically called 'The
Future'. The first section of this consists of a Nostradamus
impression by a former Director of Research for the Fabian
Society, in which he predicted that we'd all be working longer,
'cacooning' inside our homes, going to more football matches and
owning more cats than dogs in the next few years. This was
followed by a commercial for the wonders of Digital TV by a man
from the Beeb, who assured us that we would have to work with
it or die in the future. Playing for cheap claps, his power point
presentation included a clip of Mr.Dimbleby announcing the May
1st 1997 exit poll results which, not surprisingly, got the
desired effect.
The Special Guest Speaker was at this point revealed to be 'Mo'
Mowlam, who as well as being Northern Ireland Secretary (for the
moment)is also chair of the NEC Youth Committee. After a break,
her arrival was announced by a stampede of TV cameras and press
photographers, who began snapping as soon as she stepped on
stage. Bang on cue, the entire hall rose to it's feet (I admit,
it included me) as she entered, flanked by secret service. Her
speech was certainly the most inspiring which I heard during the
conference. She seemed genuinely to believe in what had been
achieved by the government and somehow, despite the onset of the
marching season, managed to appear optimistic about Northern
Ireland's prospects for peace. She was able to interlace her
oratory with humour; she claims that she has multi-skilled the
special constable asigned to her - he can now go clothes shopping
and order fish and chips. He smiled modestly at the back. 'Mo',
deservedly, recieved a second standing ovation as she left to
head for a surgery in her Redcar constituency.
At lunchtime we were exorted to seek the fringe meeting which
had the best food and I opted for the rather under-subscribed
Make votes count for Labour meeting, organised by an
internal organisation campaigning for the implementation of PR
in Westminster elections. The promised Stephen Twigg MP (of
Portillo fame) didn't turn up, so we had instead Lawrie Quinn,
the first Labour MP for Scarborough & Whitby for many years, who
dashed in in between dealing with a water main burst which had
reduced much of the town to gridlock. He put the case for PR
well, arguing that although FPTP was good for Labour in 1997,
this was about the first time that this had been the case.
He was followed by Andrew Pakes, chair of the NUS who put the
case even more passionatly than Mr.Quinn. No-one, however,
seemed to be able to give me a satisfactory answer to my
question concerning whether or not the closed list system had
been a good idea for the Euro Elections, since it led to
increased powers for Millbank and alienation both amongst
Labour grass-roots and the voters.
Returning to the conference hall after lunch, the Millbank
Tendency Head of Policy Margaret Mythen gave us the hard sell
on the new policy consultation system which meant that 'the
future isn't written yet - you can help us write it', or
soundbites to that effect. The conference then split up into
the various policy forums, my first one being the Britain in the
World meeting. Here we were split into smaller groups and given
subjects to discuss, my group's being global social justice.
Not surprisingly, the discussion in our group of five circled
mainly around the aleviation of Third World debt, on which
subject, I argued in a minority of two that debt relief and
subsequent aid should not be linked to the political system of
the nation concerned. There was general agreement that the aid
budget is currently pitifully small and that the UN should have
an increased role in the area of Third World development. The
discussion was good and surprisingly radical; I was particularly
pleased to find support for my questioning one group member's
belief that the free market should be paramount in all dealings
and that it was by neccessity a 'good thing'.
After twenty-five minutes we reported back to the full group, as
did the other discussion groups, many of whom had come up with
some very sensible suggestions. I was worried, however, that the
group which had been discussing the EU had been very anti further
integration and the single currency and was even proposing
complete withdrawal. Everything we said, we were assured, would
be taken down and used as evidence against us...sorry, I mean to
formulate policy.
My second policy forum was on Environment, Transport and the
Regions, where I was part of the group discussing transport, one
of my pet subjects. The discussion was again good, with wide
support for road pricing and the ring-fencing of the capital
raised in this manner for public transport, although concern was
expressed about the reaction of good old Middle England to such
schemes (aaaggghhh...). There was a surprising level of support
for what is really an impracticably expensive scheme to
renationalise the railways, something to do with the fact that
a number of the group members had been stuck on a stalled Virgin
Trains service without air conditioning on their way to Yorkshire
the previous day. My personal view on this was that, although in
principle I support renationalisation, in the real world the
vast amounts of money required for such a scheme would be much
better spent on improving the railways in their current form.
The group settled on the much cheaper option of tougher
regulation.
After a brief plenary session we split up again into regional
groups, where the foundations were laid for a revival of Leeds
Young Labour, which has apparently ceased to function. The
conference then officially closed for the day, but I attended
a fringe meeting entitled Your Council Needs You, which
was being heavily promoted through a bookmark-leaflet which had
John Prescott looking heavilly unsuitable to a Lord Kitchiner
role. There was plentiful free food and wine provided by Unioson
('Working towards a second term') and interesting talks by
Bev Hughes, the PPS to Hilary Armstrong, Minister for Local
Government and Sally Powell, Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham
Council, which has begun to be reformed into the Cabinet style of
working. The talks were basically aimed at convincing us that
our political futures lay in local government and on how easy it
would be to get in through the new system of Self-Nomination. We
were also urged to campaign for a reduction in the age limit for
putting yourself forward as a candidate from 21 to 18. Before
long it was time to negociate the police cordons again for the
last train home.
Next morning, back in Scarborough, we were addressed by Claire
McCarthy, the new NEC Youth Rep, who bemoned the fact that she
had been elected unopposed. The mantra of this morning was that
of the desire to shake off the curse of Labour governments: they
have never achieved a full second term. Claire spoke well and
promises to be a reasonably independently-minded rep.
We then moved on to a pair of talks on The Labour Party's
Centenary. Jim Murphy MP (from the safest Tory seat in Scotland!)
reminded us of Labour's roots and assured us that New Labour
was in no way selling them down the river...some hope! The Labour
Pary Development Officer Tracey Paul who basically told us to 'go
back to your constituencies and recruit more members, knock on
doors and stand for election'. In the question session at the
end, both she and Jim Murphy were ferociously tackled from the
floor on the subject of both Tuition Fees and the lower minimum
wage for 16-21 year olds. The feeling is that the hierachy has
given up trying to defend these things and is basically telling
us to be pleased with what we've got. The old saying that 'the
choice is not between the Labour Government you'd like and the
one we've got, but between the Labour Government we've got and
a Tory Government' was rolled out again and again.
Eventually, we were told that the PM was waiting down in the
main hall, so we trooped down to join a plenary session with the
Labour Women's Conference which had just started. On the grey
'granite' rostra were a number of female Labour luminaries,
including Baroness Jay. Lawrie Quinn was also there, looking very
out of place, welcoming the delegates to Scarborough. The Blair
was announced and the media rushed in, this being billed as a
'key-note speech' in which he would seek to heal the rifts which
have not, of course, developed between him and Prescott over the
Public Sector's role. The entire hall (excluding me and a few
others) rose to their feet in the sort of Tony worship which
seems to predominate in the Party these days. However, the
feeling I get of the younger party's attitude to Blair is that
they suffer him gladly whilst he continues to win us elections,
but when that stops...
Blair, no longer the young thing who won in 1997, swept onto the
platform and ran through what I felt to be a rather disapointing
speech in which he described his love for the public sector and
exorted us all to fight against the Tories. One moment he was
denegrating them, claiming that it was now so right-wing that
'Michael Howard and Peter Lilley had to go to the back benches
and suggesting that they were the Phantom Menace the next:
'They're there in the wings, waiting for us to slip up'.
As he ran through the list of Labour's achievenments the hall
applauded every other word, whilst the Politbureau up on the
platform nodded gravely and understandingly. It was a New
Labour puppet show personified and I felt slightly sick that what
was once such a proud party has been brought down to the level
of the flag-waving, leader-worshiping Tories. After the second
standing ovation at the end of the speech, the youth delegates
were quickly ushered out of the hall. As I left the building I
realised I had made a terrible mistake: I was trapped between the
PM's waiting Jaguar and the Scarborough Constituency Labour Party
sending off delegation. There was no escape! Blair eventually
walked out of the hall and made a few asinine remarks concerning
the lovely weather ('Is it always like this? I claim this as
another Labour achievement') and I, along with the rest of
the assembled multitude was forced to shake his hand. It's never
felt quite the same since... The Jag eventually sped off and the
Secret Service Cherokee pretentiously skidded off after him and
that was that. The conference was over. Whilst it had been a
friendly little affair, I had a feeling that nothing had been
achieved, other than the opportunity to inanely clap a few people
and promise to recruit five more members each. I wondered when
the rot of Labour will stop; the will is there for a democratic
Socialist party, but there seems to be little desire for action.
Jo Kibble 14-7-99