The fight over Labour’s future is not just playing out in Westminster, it is also unfolding among the party’s youngest members. The results of this year’s Young Labour and Labour Students contests offer an early indication of where the party may be heading.
These elections determine the national committees for Young Labour and Labour Students – bodies that, while often dismissed as minor, “careerist” and “cliquey” internal structures, actually sit at the intersection of representation and organisation within the party. They’re designed to give young members a voice and also to help coordinate campaigning and recruitment. In addition, the party’s youth wing will, in summer, elect the youth representative who will hold a dedicated seat on the National Executive Committee (NEC).
The Young Labour and Labour Students contest has been dominated by two slates with opposing views on the government. Organise, widely seen as the pro-leadership faction, has positioned itself as focused on delivery – promising a “youth wing that speaks to the whole country” and emphasising unity and campaigning strength. Renew, conversely, has warned that Labour is at a “crisis point” and criticised the Organise-majority youth committee for being “shamefully silent” on “the issues most important to young members”, while promising a more open and politically engaged youth wing.
The elections took place throughout February with results announced in early March, but this year’s came with an unusual complication. Following an administrative error over voter eligibility – the wrong membership freeze date was applied – the NEC took the seemingly unprecedented step of ordering a full rerun of contested ballots. The original ballots, however, still offer a glimpse into the direction Labour’s youth membership is heading.
Initial results showed gains for Renew, the anti-leadership slate. Its candidates won eight and three seats on, respectively, the Young Labour and Labour Students committees. At the previous elections, in 2024, there were only four successful non-Organise candidates across both bodies. And if the NEC’s rerun suggests that some contests were close, then the results may be more dramatic still for Renew.
Renew pitched itself as the platform for critique. Several candidates rallied against Young Labour’s “expectation of loyalty”, as one put it, and the idea that young members can only progress by keeping to the party line.
It is not a takeover, but it is a meaningful shift. Organise, closely linked to Labour to Win – the organisation associated with the success of Keir Starmer’s leadership is disciplined and coordinated, supported by high-profile MP endorsements. Renew, by contrast, has emerged without backing from either Momentum or newer soft-left groupings such as Mainstream. Instead, it operates as a looser coalition arguing for a different internal culture. It appears that, even without tight coordination, alternative offers can attract a significant portion of the internal electorate.
Members across the youth wing have voiced frustration with the administrative issue that required the elections to be rerun. Party officials have stressed that the decision “wasn’t taken lightly”, but candidates from both sides reported that issues with the ballots were identified early but not resolved. Action was delayed until after party staff returned from the Gorton and Denton by-election. “We knew there were people who hadn’t received ballots,” said an Organise representative. “Issues weren’t resolved – that was disappointing.” Willow Parker, the Organise candidate for Labour Students chair, said “no one’s really happy”. She noted the risk that some who voted the first time will not participate in the rerun.
For many, the error exemplifies why young members already feel dismissed by the party. Amelia Tamblyn, the Renew candidate for Labour Students chair, described a system that has been “hollowed out”, in which engagement is reduced largely to campaigning. “Every single Young Labour event… has been going canvassing and then maybe [to the] pub afterwards,” she said. “No socialising or policy development – it’s really alienating.” This disengagement is already playing out in the elections with nominations for candidates sharply decreasing since the last election, a shift that suggests a declining confidence in these structures and a shrinking pool of members willing to engage with them. The party has also been in the process of hiring a youth and student coordinator for the past month after the previous incumbent vacated the role in November, leaving a gap at the centre of the very structures between young members and party that are under scrutiny.
Even those within Organise acknowledge the challenge – despite holding almost the entirety of the roles on the outgoing committee. It has pointed to “a problem… of young members feeling left out”. Emily Moore, Organise’s candidate for Young Labour chair, argued that rebuilding trust would require a “massive listening exercise”.
Disagreement within the party’s youth membership is not over whether there is a problem – all agree there is. The contention is what these structures should be for. Organise has emphasised unity and campaigning capacity; Renew has focused on creating space for debate and allowing members to criticise leadership. The broader question facing Labour is whether its youth wings are primarily tools for mobilisation or space for political development.
For a party already struggling to maintain its youth base, the answer matters. Membership of young people has fallen sharply in recent years, and on campuses Labour faces greater competition from other progressive parties. As reported last year, many students see official party structures as distant and overly controlled, with limited space for dissent.
These elections reveal the shift in expectations. Younger members are still participating – but they are more selective about how and why. “When you see things starting to mount up you understand why members are getting more pissed off,” a Renew-backed independent candidate said. “Something needs to give.”
The new results of the Young Labour and Labour Students elections are expected within the next two weeks. The local elections are in May, and the NEC elections will happen in the summer. The results, when they come, will not just determine who leads Young Labour and Labour Students – they will offer one of the clearest early signals of where Labour’s internal politics is heading next.
[Further reading: Will Labour embrace electoral reform?]
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