One of the most important debates at the Blackpool Labour Party Annual Conference will be on the report of the Committee of Inquiry set up by the NEC to investigate party organisation.
The committee recommends a number of [illegible] to the rules governing the [illegible] and National Conference of the Young [illegible]. One is that subjects of general interest can be included on the conference agenda. This, the report says, would give the Young Socialists "more control of their own organisation than the Labour youth movement has ever enjoyed before."
This hesitant step forward is undoubtedly a belated recognition that the Labour Party has been unable, to build a viable youth movement because it has insisted on shackling the Y.S. Youth is everywhere in the vanguard of the socialist movement and they could certainly not be confined within the narrow bounds laid down for them in the past by the Labour Party.
It is doubtful, however, if this small concession will bring the revolutionary youth flocking into the ranks of the Young Socialists. The committee is opposed to having an autonomous youth movement - it suggests that it would collapse without party support and warns that political youth organisations are "especially vulnerable to infiltration by subversive" (read "revolutionary") "elements". The bureaucratic mind cannot conceive of support without control and this indicates the severe limitations of this "advance."
The one other proposal which has some merit is the abolition of the five seats of the women's section of the National Executive. It recommends that the trade union section should have three more seats, giving it a total of 15, and local parties two more, making nine.
Although, on the face of it, the trade union section would now have an overall majority on the 28-strong NEC, in fact this marks a gain for the constituency parties. In the past, the women's section was elected by the whole conference which meant, in effect, that it was the massive trade union vote which decided who should be on it. The women's section has generally been filled by solid supporters of the Transport House establishment.
The abolition of the women's section is also a step towards the recognition of the equal place of women members in the party. Women will now be elected on their merit as party members and not simply because they are women. This should lead ultimately to the abolition of the different membership cards for men and women members and of women's sections in the local parties.