Youth

Issues for young people

Polarisation in Harlow

“Brexit” is “Brexit” and “violent assault” is “violent assault”. Much as some people would deny that there is a connection between Brexit and the violence that occurred in Harlow over the August bank holiday, leaving one Polish man dead and another injured, there is undoubtedly one. Both statements attempt to describe something and yet still leave one in the dark.I live in Harlow and have done so since 1959, I love this town. Its problems, such as they are, are no more (and probably less) than anywhere else in Britain. One thing it is not, is intolerant. Quite the opposite. A lot of people...

No to school uniforms!

Hartsdown Academy, in Kent, sent 50 students home on the first day of term for “incorrect” school uniform. Nervous 11-year-olds on their first day in big school were turned away because of quibbles about their socks, or buckles on their shoes.Yet the headteacher and the academy chain bosses are defiantly self-righteous. They want to stop the school being “scruffy”. There is no evidence that wearing costly, awkward, and weird clothes helps learning. School uniforms are unknown in Finland, which comes top in world assessments, and in France and Germany. I teach maths in a school which requires...

Mental health care is a right

Last year, 2015, 61% of under-18s referred to local mental health services (CAMHS) got no treatment. A third didn’t even get assessed. In some areas, as few as 20% of those referred got treatment. Those figures come from the most recent NHS statistics. Previous figures have shown that even those who get treatment often have to wait six months or longer to get it. NHS boss Simon Stevens says that at present the NHS is “able to respond to perhaps one in four children who might be defined as having a mental health need”. The rich should be taxed heavily to rebuild the NHS, starting with this...

For a democratic youth movement

Momentum Youth and Students founding conference in Manchester on 5 June was a big step forward towards creating a radical democratic youth movement. 200 young Labour Party and socialist activists attended. The conference opened strongly with an all-women plenary. Hannah McCarthy, the Campaigns and Citizenship Officer at the University of Manchester Student Union, set the tone with news of an inspiring victory for low-paid catering workers at the university, and the importance of fighting explicitly for socialist ideas. We also heard from left-wing Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey, the new chair...

Vote remain! Workers’ unity can change Europe

Q: Is it really worth voting on 23 June? A: Yes. All polls suggest that, if “leave” wins, it will win because the embittered “why isn’t Britain the same as it was in the 1950s” types turn out in greater numbers than the more cosmopolitan-minded young. Let “leave” win, and you lose your EU citizenship, which entitles you to travel, and to move for work, freely in Europe. You (and two million British citizens living in EU countries) may well lose arrangements like the European Health Insurance Card, which entitles you to free or heavily-discounted public health care across Europe. Your friends...

Organise a youth movement

This weekend, two important events are taking place in Manchester for young members of the labour movement: an extraordinary national conference of Labour Students, and the first democratic conference of Momentum Youth and Students. The Labour Students extraordinary conference on Saturday 4 June is ostensibly organised to introduce a new voting system of One Member One Vote (OMOV). However, the proposed constitution, presented as “take it or leave it” with no opportunity for parts and amendments, represents a pre-emptive attempt by the Blairite incumbents to shore up their position in the...

Young Labour: gains for the left

After three hectic days in Scarborough (26-28 February), the dust is yet to settle from the events of the annual Labour Students and Young Labour conference. The Momentum slate was initially a resounding success in every region, getting an enormous number of Corbyn-supporting delegates elected. However the left ran into early difficulties with finances, as there was no assistance available from Labour with the costs of transport or accommodation. There was a compulsory £30/40 registration fee, an the conference was held in a part of the country hard to get to for the majority of members...

How do we build a mass movement? Build real local Young Labour groups!

Rida Vaquas, West Midlands rep on the newly elected Young Labour national committee, spoke to Solidarity in the run-up to the Young Labour conference on 27-28 February. We shouldn’t understate the victory of the left slate. Previously we had a minority of regional representatives who regularly organised with the left. We now have won every position. I think my campaign, on a firmly socialist and democratic basis, went well (I won!), but out of 3,000 young members in my region only 141 votes were cast. How does the left develop a truly mass democratic movement? If the left wins at the...

Labour youth and student conferences

On the weekend of 26-28 February, the Annual General Meetings of Labour Students and Young Labour will be held in Scarborough. Previously a bastion of the Blairite right, with a reputation for venal careerism, sinister banality (networking events!), and barely-legal bureaucratic skulduggery, Labour Students has been buffeted by the winds of change following Jeremy Corbyn's election. Across the UK, Labour Clubs have seen a surge of interest from leftwing young people from September. This has, naturally, been met with horror from the outgoing leadership. Blairite chieftains issued instructions...

Mental health shortfall worsens

Waiting lists in the NHS are increasing for physical illnesses. But at least they are monitored, and the government feels pressure to reduce them. According to a new report from the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), one child in five of those referred to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) is denied service. For those who get it, the wait for an assessment appointment averages two months across the country, more than 26 weeks in some areas, and “years not months” in others. In other words, an unmanageably long time for the child or adolescent...

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