Who We Are

If you find yourself, on any particular day, wanting to delve into Labour history, then I strongly encourage a listen to Neil Kinnock’s 1985 Labour Party Conference speech. Often regarded as his greatest speech, which changed the Labour Party amid the division it caused in the room, in it Kinnock also centrally recognised that Labour must be a party for young people as much as it is for others. “We live at a time of new needs among the peoples of the world and new aspirations among young people”, his Welsh tones orated towards the sea of people in front of him.

Yet now, looking back on the Starmer years, it cannot help but be noticed that Labour’s youth support was, and still is, severely damaged. In several polls, the Green Party are leading amongst 18–24-year-olds, and have been largely since Zack Polanski was elected leader a year ago in September 2025.

Looking beyond the spreadsheet, this defection of young people en masse to the left also played out before our very eyes. At the University of Warwick, the former Warwick Labour Society made the decision in August 2025 to rebrand to the Warwick Left Society. In a statement, their Chair pointed out that the Labour Party has become “a party so out of touch with its values”. At universities, we also saw support waning for those that hadn’t defected to parties like the Greens, with support for Labour policies under Starmer heavily criticised. Oxford University Labour Club vocally criticised the Home Secretary’s immigration deal with France in April 2026.