Tulip Siddiq

‘Oh they don’t care’ – a common claim made about young people. Apparently we’re all apathetic and disengaged from politics. Not true. A lot of us do care. The disconnect is not of young people from issues or from politics – if we take politics in the true sense of the word. The lack of engagement comes from apathy about party politics.
 

The march against student fees had a record number of young people. Recognising the importance of this to their lives, young people took direct action to make their voices heard.
But our political interest stretches beyond self interest. An overwhelming number of young people marched against the Iraq War and in the recent climate change ‘wave’ march. The Million Women Rise march, a woman’s only event, had five thousand women last year- significantly bigger than anything of its kind for decades – and a high proportion of participants were young. Oxfam, Amnesty International and campaigns such as Make Poverty History have young people as their key members.
 
And it doesn’t stop at marching. Politics plays a part in how young people live their lives. Young people are the predominant customer base of ethical free trade shops. It’s actually quite ‘cool’ to shop and live ethically, to eat fair-trade chocolate, buy make-up that hasn’t been tested on animals, to recycle, to attend concerts that raise awareness about issues…you get the idea.  

We know of a young Muslim women’s group in Camden. They meet up weekly to discuss issues such as the growing threat of terrorism, free school meals, misinterpretation of Islam in the media and the bureaucracy associated with claiming housing benefits.  

These young women would never attend the Young Labour events that take place in Parliament, or party political events anywhere in the country.. And why? Frankly speaking, Party politics is often viewed as a closed shop. It’s for the elite, by the elite. Often it’s seen as a club just for white, well connected London based men. The lack of women and BAME MPs doesn’t help to counter this view. The national tone of PMQs (a rugby match anyone?) doesn’t encourage participation from all areas of society either.
 
Young people don’t see how voting or supporting a political party has any real connection to the issues they care about. And, frankly, we’re awful at explaining it to them. They don’t recognise that the actions they take are, in fact, political actions (to live ethically, engage in direct action etc) and when repeating the mantra that ‘young people are all apathetic’ we too fail to recognise this.
  
If we want them to engage in Party politics, we fundamentally need to change the way we ‘do’, ‘sell’ and ‘support’ politics. We need to show how politics affects individual lives. Party politics needs to be shown as a coalition of action, as working towards achieving specific outcomes and harbouring certain values. . It can’t just be about ‘the Labour Party’ because a lot of young people don’t care about party loyalty. Unconditional party support is a relic of the past. We need to work harder to show people why we matter, what we can do for them, and what we will allow them to do for us.

Let’s face it – we live in an increasingly individualistic age. We need to clarify that being part of a Party doesn’t mean you agree with every single policy. Being part of a flock that blindly follows the leader just doesn’t appeal to young people.

We both volunteered on the Obama campaign. And let us tell you – we need to change the culture of appreciation in British politics. We were inundated with food, drink and gushing praise the entire time. In the UK, it’s not unheard of going to campaign for a Labour MP for hours (in the bitter wind) and not even receiving a small thank you. We have to realise; the days of people doing menial tasks for little personal reward or thanks are over.

There are a lot of opportunities for young people to volunteer, and ‘make a difference’ with organisations will give them real responsibility. 3 hours of putting leaflets through letterboxes just doesn’t compare to being responsible for a shop floor at Oxfam. Time is a precious commodity, and experience all important, so let’s think carefully about what we offer young people in return for their help.

There’s a lot of work to be done. And with declining party memberships (from all parties) it’s necessary too. But let’s start this work from the powerful realisation; Yes, young people care.

Written by Tulip Siddiq and Sam Bacon

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This article was originally published on the Labourlist.org website.

I’m really happy to have been able to add my name and join Ed Miliband in his campaign for a Living Wage – an add-on to the minimum wage which will take into account the difference in living costs in cities.

I’m supporting this issue for two reasons. Firstly, any measure that can improve the wages of the lowest-paid in society is hard to disagree with, and it’s important for everyone to realise that, even with a minimum wage, there are big differences in living costs in different areas of the country.

Secondly, research has shown that companies that pay their workers less than the ‘living wage’ actually end up costing the taxpayer more money – and if we can cut down on this type of cost without cutting key public services, then we should do it!

You can read more about the living wage here and also Ed’s article in the Observer here.

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The whole point of the Labour party is greater equality, so for women MPs the benchmark should not be other, lagging, parties, but ourselves.

A great man once said that this was no time for a novice. Well some not-so-great women are now telling you that this is no time for a sycophant. Comrades – please stop patting yourselves on the back about how great Labour were when it came to putting women in positions of power and how the Terrible Tories are oh-so-backward.

We really aren’t that great. Yes we are better than the other parties but we haven’t done enough. Truth is that we love the Labour Party. We both sleep breathe and eat Labour values. That doesn’t automatically mean we’re blindly partisan. It means we want the Party to be a pioneer when it comes to women. And our record on women is, at best mediocre, at worst inadequate.

Yes we had more women in the cabinet than the ConDems do. Well of course we would. We’re the Labour Party. Not the Conservatives who actually had a manifesto pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act. Not the Lib Dems who have climbed into bed with the Terrible Tories.

We are in a league of our own and, frankly speaking, it’s our duty to champion the way forward for equality. We don’t need to compare ourselves to other parties, we need to have our own goals in sight. Especially as we are now the sole progressive force in British politics.

Until Diane Abbott threw her hat in for the leadership contest, we, along with other young Labour women, were despairing. There’s no guarantee that we’re voting for Diane but at least she changes the terms of the debate. At least our candidates can no longer form a boyband. But her nomination battle was hardly ideal. At the eleventh hour Harriet Harman and others rallied together to salvage her bid. And a male contender had to drop out to make way for her – not the most auspicious start to her campaign.

You can be sure that we’ll be scrutinising our leadership candidates for their policies on women. Ed Miliband’s tweet on the proposal of 50% of the Shadow Cabinet being women is positive “Good debate. Believe it is right. Will see what Labour MPs decide” but there are many more demands that will need to be met as demonstrated by this website.

Of course there is another important race in which a female, BAME candidate will play a key role. Again we haven’t decided who we are supporting but Oona King’s bid to become queen of the capital is extremely welcoming. Finally a leading female voice in a key battleground – but still not enough.

It’s important to note that there were two female candidates in Labour’s last deputy leadership contest but only one woman running for leader in this contest. We have a large number of female local councillors but only 81 women MPs that constitute just 31% of the new Parliamentary Labour Party. That’s something we can be moderately proud of but not something to write home about, especially considering that the total number of Labour women MPs actually fell in this election. Only six Labour women MPs (and eight women MPs in all), stood to be Chair of a select committee compared with 40 men. This is a missed opportunity for women to lead Parliament in holding the male-dominated executive to account.

So why do so few women strive to lead? Is the Labour Party to blame? Or is our political culture just not conducive to a female leader? Has it become the unspoken rule that women can be second in command but never quite hold the reigns of power?

Why are Labour women reluctant to put themselves forward for the ‘big’ positions? Is it a lack of self-confidence or ambition? Or is it because they do not believe the party will accept a woman as leader? Perhaps they simply cannot bear going through the emotional washing machine that is the British media’s punishment for women in power. Think of the column inches devoted to Jacqui Smith’s cleavage, not to mention the countless zoomed-in photos of our first female Home Secretary. We can only hope that Theresa May’s policies will receive as much scrutiny as her shoes.

But it’s not all bad news for women in politics. We rejoiced after our first three Muslim women got elected to Parliament this year. Ok good work but seriously? It’s 2010. Shouldn’t we really have achieved this milestone a while back? We had our first Muslim man in Parliament back in 1997 when Mohammad Sarwar won Glasgow Central. Why did it take us 13 years longer to elect a Muslim woman?

Perhaps this shows that we need to reassess our policies on women and that we can no longer ignore the concept of intersectionality. It is not enough to tackle discrimination solely against women, or BAME candidates. We need to think about discrimination against candidates who may be both.

Therefore, central to tackling discrimination against women in politics is an understanding that our women activists do not experience discrimination purely because of their gender. The barriers against them may stem from a variety of factors including their ethnicity, disability, their perceived ‘class’ status and sexual orientation. Rather than operating independently, these strands of discrimination accumulate. So we need to consider whether Diane would have had an easier ride if she was not from a BAME background or whether it would have been impossible to get her on the ballot paper were she disabled.

Our point is that if the benchmark is the Tories, then yes we can reign in triumph over our outstanding record on women. But if our benchmark is true equality, we still have a long way to go.

By Tulip Siddiq and Debbie Moss

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This article was originally published on the Labourlist.org website.

Recently I attended one of the many hustings for the next Labour leader. My initial thought was whether I was looking at Labour’s version of Westlife (plus one). My second thought was that I really want to attend the next family lunch at the Miliband household. (They only live in Camden so it won’t be a long trek for me!)

Memorable moments of the hustings included Diane Abbott’s impassioned speech where she posed herself as the ‘turn the page’ candidate and the only politician on the platform who had voted against the Iraq War. Ed Balls spent a while outlining how his wife, another Labour politician, shouldn’t have to justify why she wasn’t standing instead of him. Interesting but doth he protest too much?

At the post-hustings drinks, some described Andy Burnham as the dark horse with potential. His references to Billy Bragg and the impact these hustings are having on his World Cup schedule gave him something of the human touch. His line about making politics less London-centric provoked a series of tweets including one girl who proudly declared that Andy Burnham had officially ‘warmed her Lancashire heart.’

But the McDougall brothers (remember them?) of this Labour X-Factor show, without a shadow of doubt, are the Mili-brothers. My inner geek is having a field day analysing this Sophocles Greek tragedy-esque battle of the brothers. Did they ever think while they were getting dressed for their school play in our very own Haverstock School that they would one day be competing to run the Labour Party and perhaps eventually the country?

Jeremy Paxman obviously took great pleasure in a recent Newsnight hustings by patronisingly quipping ‘let your brother have a go David’ to Ed. Oh how many times that must have been said by Mummy Miliband during ‘Hungry Hungry Hippos’ (or more likely Daddy’s Das Kapital)nBut aside from sharing the same surname and a famous political scientist father, what differentiates the brothers?

David delivered powerful rhetoric about how we can’t spend our time trying to dream of a better yesterday because we need to concentrate on a better tomorrow. Recently, he has called for the government to withdraw charitable status from private schools.

Turning to lil’ Miliband, I liked the fact that when asked about the biggest lesson of the last 13 years, Ed acknowledged that the Labour Party ran into difficulties when it lost a sense of direction and purpose; when it became more like a party of managers than idealists. He despaired that Labour became less focused on taking big decisions based on its core values, whether that was bankers bonuses, social housing or protecting people’s conditions at work.

Ed’s confession that Labour politicians became technocrats and lost their willingness to change made me sigh with relief. He admitted that as a result, by the time of this election, people didn’t know what Labour stood for. Yes spot on Ed! Music to my ears!

Call me a sucker but I really liked his repetition of fairness and how it is at the heart of the Labour Party’s mission. He reinforced his support for a long-term 50p tax rate and promoted his campaign for a living wage of more than £7 an hour. In response to a question on Iraq, he said although he wasn’t a Member of Parliament during Iraq, he knows it was a catastrophic blunder on Labour’s part. His reference to the importance of local government and the necessity to devolve more power to local authorities resonated strongly with my own interests. As did his continuous focus on environmental issues.

Or perhaps I just have a soft spot for younger siblings, being one myself. It’s a tough life always having to eat the leftovers you know!

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This article was originally published on the Total Politics website.

If one thing stood out as one of the most memorable moments of the summer, it must have been when Gordon Brown kissed me on national television! Click here –> The final kiss <– for the full story (with photos!)