National Organisation of Labour Students
| Labour Students | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Chairperson | Kate Dearden |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| Ideology |
Social democracy Democratic socialism |
| International affiliation | International Union of Socialist Youth |
| European affiliation | Young European Socialists |
| National affiliation | Labour Party |
| Website | |
| labourstudents.org.uk | |
Labour Students is the student organisation affiliated to the Labour Party of the United Kingdom.
Membership comprises affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs. Membership of Labour Students is through membership of a university or college Labour Club or through signing up individually as a Labour Student on the website.
The organisation's main activities include providing political education and training to its members, organising politically within the National Union of Students and sending activists to by-elections and marginal constituencies across the country.
Founded in 1946, in 1967, the National Association of Labour Student Organisations (NALSO), the Labour Party's student organisation, was derecognised by the party 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.
One of the principal areas of conflict was the Vietnam War, with Trevor Fisk, the leading member of the traditionalists, refusing to criticise Harold Wilson's government over its tacit support for the United States in the war. The fight against Fisk was led, in particular, by Jack Straw, who supplanted Fisk as President of the NUS in 1969.
In 1970 Labour students created the "Students for a Labour Victory" to co-ordinate campaigning in that year's general election. That organisation became the National Organisation of Labour Students, which held its founding conference in 1971. Despite changing its name in the early 1990s,Labour Students is still sometimes referred to by the acronym NOLS.
In its early years, NOLS was divided between two factions — members of the entryist Militant group 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,Margaret Curran and Johann Lamont.
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