LAST WEEK'S Labour Party conference voted to destroy the independent role of the LPYS. The resolutions put by Hillhead and Edinburgh South CLPs and supported by the National Organisation of Labour Students were a crude grab for control of the youth section by the NEC. They were made all the more possible by the disastrous results of the politics of Militant in the leadership of the LPYS. This was no where more clear than at conference — on Monday the Labour Party confirmed Militant's expulsion, on Wednesday the YS representative summed up for the right-wing on black sections, on Thursday whole Fabian Society pamphlet by John Mann (exNOLS chair) and Phil Woolas (ex-NUS president) prepare the conference debate for the NEC. These pointed to the need to win the 6.2 million voters LPYS and so 'tap the energy and talent' of youth for Labour. The NEC spokesperson Tom Sawyer has said the LPYs should concentrate on 'vouth culture' The blunt truth is these decisions ensure control of youth work directly from the new, more right-wing NEC. Regional 'youth campaign committees' and YS delegates, CLP youth and delegates, rather than •LPYS branches, youth work and replace the LPYS. From 1987 conference a national 'youth campaign will control the party's youth work and elect the youtn representative onto the with the reduction of the age limit to 21 this ensures a youth section subordinate to the will of the NEC and will stunt the political development of its When Tom Sawyer summed up in the debate by saying that these proposals would build an 'open, democratic, campaigning youth organisa£7000 off the LPYS funds in the last year and expelled several of its members. Promises of such doors to at least a third of its conference delegates, and by the powerless shells of trade union youth Sawyer's reference to how the NEC would 'consult' youth in future when deciding their campaigns for them touched the heart of the matter The NEC is removing exactly what a 'vibrant' youth section needs The problem with the LPYS is its politics not its structure. These politics have isolated the LPYS from every progressive struggle in recent years Movement and from the political lessons of the miners strike. The most grotesque recent example Frances Curran, lining up with the right wing by summing up for the NEC in the Black Sections debate. Such indefensible politics explain the exEpinally for vote fine the Hilled and There are two alternatives to these politics. foist NEC control over the YS. shape in the course of the conference around CamLaYS by forces like the Black Sections and their and which campaign this year for NEC representative.
The politics of Campaign Forum would build a mass LPYS, by make alliances with black youth, women, lesbians and gay men, volving the LPYS in all progressive campaigns and struggles. By pportin ghts as that of black people and women to spe for themselves, Irish people to govern Ireland and black people in South Africa to be able to vote and decide where to work will make the YS relevant to thousands more young people Despite the NEC rhetoric, the introduction of a committee decided be eil kinock and Roy Hattersley, will that will 'consult' do the exact opposite of this.
NOLS, trade union youth officers, will committee NEC. Combined was speaking for the same NEC which cut hollow when it is to the women's movement, spectacle of the LPYS representative,