Young Scottish Nationalists call for radical policies
Attending the Scottish National Party Conference in Perth in September, CATHERINE BROWN from Green Left Weekly talked to Nicola Sturgeon and Shona Robison from Young Scottish Nationalists, and Tommy Toner from the Federation Student Nationalists, about YSN, issues facing students and the role of young people in the SNP.
"First and foremost, we are a nationalist party, so obviously if you look at our policies we are left of centre", Toner explained. "But it is a very big step to get people who have been nationalists all their lives to tie themselves to a particular ideology. They're certainly doing it in the policies we adopt at the conference and they're certainly doing it in the campaigns we fight on the streets and in election campaigns. Maybe to do it formally is to ask a wee bit too much".
YSN in only 10 years has become the biggest youth political group in Scotland. At the same time, young people, according to Robison, have become the main support for the SNP. The SNP ran the youngest candidates in the last election, Sturgeon was one. So the SNP has to take YSN seriously and it was evident from the SNP conference that it does.
YSN has an autonomous role in the SNP. "We're very active in the development of policy, having representation on all SNP bodies, so we are there where decisions are made", Sturgeon commented. "One of the crucial roles of YSN is to raise issues that perhaps wouldn't be raised otherwise", said Robison, who was elected as SNP vice- president at the party's conference.
The number of women leaders in YSN was evident at the conference. This has been a more recent development according to Sturgeon. Even so Robison pointed out "we can't afford to rest on our laurels. We passed a policy at the last YSN conference to actively promote women within YSN through positive action".
FSN is based on universities and colleges, while YSN campaigns around broader issues facing young people.
Policy around social security, anti-racism and the Asylum Bill, and student issues are just some of the initiatives of either YSN or FSN.
Student debts, a total of £11 million, and the resulting poverty, even homelessness is a major campaign for FSN. A survey at Strathclyde University in Glasgow in 1991, by the Student Union where Toner was Education Convenor, showed that 50% of students were in debt and 25% were considering dropping out due to debt pressures.
"With 13 years of Thatcherism, FSN has been very prominent in the campaign against the withdrawal of housing benefits, introduction of student loans. SNP policy adopted as this conference — the writing off of all student loans — will be important for FSN", Toner stated.
"YSN has had an influx of ex-Labour Party members and also those with have been politicised through being in YSN", explained Robison. "Due to the Labour Party becoming more and more right wing, a lot of young people who perhaps, in the past, would have voted for and joined the Labour Party joined YSN", added Sturgeon. "Being a youth wing we attract many young people who are thinking about politics for the first time. Some as young as fourteen".
The many radicals in YSN and FSN, Toner explained, "have a lot of influence in the SNP. But the SNP does have to be pragmatic. With 13 years of Thatcherism, the only solution now is to have strong socialist policies to repair the damage that has been done to housing, education, the health service and so on. We now need strong socialist policies to go ahead and help those who have suffered from union with England, through the repression of successive Westminster governments".