Working His Notice

Whereas Young Labour has always been run entirely by volunteers, the extremely right-wing vote-riggers of Labour Students had several full-time staff, paid for by the Labour Party.

Labour Students was middle-class by definition. Watch out for its revival after the closing down of Young Labour, which included every member aged between 14 and 26. Even the wildest zealot has never suggested that any more than 50 per cent of a given cohort ought to go to university, where Labour's only youth organisation is going to be.

Shutting down Young Labour is crucial to banishing the working class from the Labour Party, along with actively encouraging the disaffiliation of the trade unions. Few, if any, predominantly middle-class unions are affiliated. However close the relationship with, say, the teaching unions, or the PCS, there is nothing on paper, and no money changes hands. The affiliated unions are things like the BFAWU, which is preparing to walk out because of the expulsion of its President.

Starmer wants that, of course. But he has failed so miserably to raise any money from anywhere else that his own staff, through two affiliated trade unions, are about to go on strike. He made his name locking up the lower orders, and he still wants to subject them to permanent austerity while sending them to be harvested in forever wars. But their delicious revenge is now upon him.