Labour Students

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.

History

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.