More Politics Please

Mark Gallagher

The venue for the Scottish Youth and Student Conference 2003 on Saturday 8th of November was Unison House in Glasgow. After a brief introduction by the outgoing Chairs of Scottish Young Labour and Scottish Labour Students, Gemma Doyle and Adam Hug, youth delegates were treated to an address and a question and answer session from John McFall, MP for Dumbarton. He spoke of the government having to make tough decisions, of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown bring the best of friends and of being proud of the achievements of the Blair government so far.

Next up were a number of National Policy Forum workshops. I attended the workshop on 'Britain in the World' and found myself in a group of ten or eleven delegates discussing a wide range of issues including the war on Iraq, National Missile Defence, the European Union and HIV/AIDS. The workshop was split roughly 70% in favour of the Iraq war and I found myself in the minority along with the workshop leader and one other delegate.

During the lunch break I took the opportunity to hand out copies of The
Citizen and to use them as conversation starters. One delegate I got chatting to seemed sympathetic to my left-wing thoughts until he explained his idea of the next Labour Party leader was somebody like Douglas Alexander. If nothing else though I was encouraged that at least delegates could be civil towards each other despite political differences.

In the afternoon, conference moved to John Smith House and next on the agenda was the big event of the weekend, the speech by Scotland's First Minister, Jack McConnell MSP. Cue the first use of the word `socialism' of the weekend. To be honest, the two times I remember Jack mentioning the word rather stuck out amongst talk of anti-social behaviour and the Scottish Executive's record.

Later there was a session on the European Elections featuring Catherine Stihler MEP, Deputy General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party Murdo Mathison and Caroline Boyle of Scotland in Europe. After their contributions I got the chance to ask a question on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. My question was answered with a combination of the panel not quite knowing what I meant by Democracy, Devolution and being encouraged to make my views known through the usual Party channels.

On Sunday morning, after a delay of an hour or so which can be attributed to some overzealous celebrations at the previous evening's Conference Party, there were elections to the Scottish Youth Campaigns Committee and the Scottish Labour Students Committee. These were largely non-political, at least on the surface, suggesting it was largely assumed there was a certain amount of consensus. This was apart from one candidate who made a virtue out of having left his left-wing past behind him.

Next up was another set of workshops. The one I attended, on the European Elections, was largely aimed towards increasing voter turnout and the Labour vote at the elections although there was also some discussion of the European Union itself. I was the only delegate in the workshop in favour of a referendum on the European Constitution and the only one against entry into the European Single Currency.

The topic for the open floor debate of the conference was 'Internationalism Post the Iraq Conflict' which delegates had voted for. I opened the debate and stated my continued opposition to the war and the occupation of Iraq. The first response was from Karim Palant, National Chair of Labour Students, who made the case for 'regime change' in light of Saddam Hussein's crimes against the Iraqi people. To their credit one or two delegates pointed out this had not been the focus of the case made before the war and they felt they had been misled.

Overall it would be of benefit to delegates and the Party if there was much more time made for debate and even for delegates to get to know each other. This would contribute to their political education much more than listening to speeches by leading Party figures. More politics is needed, more political argument, more political inquiry, more politics period.