История и возрождение организации студенческих лейбористов в Великобритании

Labour Students is a student organisation within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. It is a network of affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs, who campaign in their campuses and communities for Labour's values of equality and social justice. Labour Students’ main activities include providing political education and training to its members, sending activists to by elections and marginal constituencies across the country and organising politically within the National Union of Students and Student Unions. Labour Students was disaffiliated from the Labour Party by the Party's National Executive Committee in September 2019, with the intent of replacing it with a new student organisation. Although campaigning activity continued to be organised under the Labour Students branding during the 2019 general election, the organisation subsequently ceased to exist. National Committee elections were held in August 2022 and Ben McGowan was elected as the inaugural chair of the organisation on 2 September 2022.

The Labour Party's first organisation for students was the National Association of Labour Student Organisations (NALSO), which was founded in 1946 but had its recognition by the party withdrawn in 1967 after it was taken over by supporters of the Trotskyist Socialist Labour League. While the Scottish organisation continued, the Labour Party was left without a national student body. In 1970, some Labour supporters created Students for a Labour Victory, a group intended to coordinate campaigning in the general election that year. That group then became the National Organisation of Labour Students (NOLS), which held its founding conference in 1971. Despite changing its name in the early 1990s, and a mainstream left group, associated with the Tribune group of Labour MPs, which formed in January 1974 called Clause Four, after the central political statement of the Labour Party constitution. Militant controlled NOLS from January 1974 to December 1975. Members of NOLS in the 1970s included future parliamentarians Charles Clarke, Bill Speirs, Peter Mandelson, Sally Morgan, Mike Gapes, Mike Jackson, Nigel Stanley, As a consequence, about half of member clubs, including Oxford University Labour Club and Cambridge University Labour Club, disaffiliated from Labour Students. Further to the disaffiliations by Labour university Clubs, a motion was tabled by Jon Lansman at the Labour Party NEC meeting in September 2019 to dissolve the current organisation on the grounds that it did not pay its affiliation fees nor submitted its political rules to the party. At the NEC meeting this motion passed and Labour Students is no longer affiliated to the Labour Party. A new, refounded National Labour Students (NLS) was passed at the 2021 Labour Party Conference. National Committee elections were held in August 2022 and Ben McGowan was elected as the inaugural chair of the organisation on 2 September 2022.

Prior to 2019, Labour Students was a 'socialist society', affiliated to the Labour Party. This means that, whilst its aims were broadly in line with the wider party, Labour Students was an independent organisation and was entitled to democratically determine its own policy and governance. Labour Students members were entitled to vote in the affiliates section of Labour leadership elections. The refounded National Labour Students is a formal branch of the Labour Party, and as such is not responsible for its own governance. Any Labour Party member who is a student is automatically a member of National Labour Students

The National Labour Students Committee convenes regularly and works together to ensure the organisation runs smoothly and works effectively to represent members.

Within Labour Students there are four autonomous liberation campaigns. These were the Women's, Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Trans, Disabled Students and Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) Students campaigns, all of which are entitled to elect an officer to the National Committee. Labour Students holds caucuses for each of the liberation groups at every national event, has an equal opportunities policy and ensures all events are fully accessible.

There are separate organisations for Labour Clubs in the devolved nations, known as Welsh Labour Students and Scottish Labour Students respectively. The Chairs of these two organisations also sit on the committee of Labour Students as full members.

Every year, Labour Students actively organised and campaigned within the National Union of Students (NUS). As a result of this, Labour Students was viewed as an influential faction within the NUS and its members were frequently elected to the NUS National Executive Council (NEC) and to full time officer positions, although 2015 saw a majority of their candidates losing to those to the Left.

In the late 1970s, Labour Students (then NOLS) worked within the NUS as part of the Broad Left, a student coalition which also included the student wing of the Communist Party of Great Britain and independent left wing students. The Broad Left stood slates of candidates in NUS elections. (The Broad Left is not to be confused with the post 1997 grouping Student Broad Left.) In the early 1980s NOLS broke with the Broad Left and presented its own slate of candidates in NUS elections. In 1982, NOLS won the presidency of NUS on its own for the first time. A succession of NOLS candidates were elected to the NUS Presidency until 2000 with the strongest challenges generally coming from those to the left of the Labour Party. Several former NOLS NUS Presidents, including Charles Clarke and Jim Murphy, went on to serve as Cabinet ministers, serving as members of a Labour government. Throughout this period, NOLS members of the NUS National Executive Committee were a minority, but exercised effective control. Labour Students' flagship policy in NUS was the rejection of campaigning for universal grants, in favour of targeting student support funds towards poorer students through means testing. National Conference 2006 narrowly supported this policy, but it was renewed with a much increased majority in 2007. However, the position was reversed again when National Conference 2016 voted to campaign for universal living grants, funded through progressive taxation, in both further and higher education, in a policy change that had been pushed forward by the left wing group, the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts.

Recent graduates of Labour Students have often gone on to work in Labour Party headquarters, as ministerial special advisers, Trade Union officials and as members of left leaning think tanks. Many also go on to enjoy successful careers outside of the politics.