'Co-Chairs' Report' - Hari Bravery and Maia Hamilton

'Co-Chairs' Report' - Hari Bravery and Maia Hamilton

Thank you all for taking the time to read the Oxford University Labour Club’s Trinity Term 2022 Look Left!

The relentless passion and enthusiasm of Look Left’s contributors is a never-ending source of pride for our club; the release of every new edition of Look Left is a testament to the ideological diversity of our club, but out shared membership of the broad church that is the Labour Party. With contents ranging from a book review of Simon Kuper’s book Chums, surveying the role of Oxford in the upbringing of this noxious Tory government, to an interview with the one and only Neil Kinnock, there is something for everyone! Look Left and the respectful academic engagement with different sects of left-wing thought remind us that all this business of campaigning and political parties is worth nothing without the ideology that underpins it – the ideals of a more just, more compassionate, more diverse Britain.

An obvious highlight of our term was the great success of Oxford Labour in the local city council election. If you came out and canvassed, handed out leaflets, pidged letters, stuck up a Labour poster in your JCR, or even just went to vote red in your local area – thank you! It was incredibly rewarding to see the success of so many hours of tireless campaigning. This term we truly cemented OULC’s status ‘as an active campaigning force’ as per our Wikipedia page!

Both of us were passionate about crafting a packed termcard, that balanced campaigning with intellectually engaging speakers. And a speaker heavy term it was! In Trinity we hosted some huge figures of the Labour movement of the past, including Neil Kinnock, David Miliband, Richard Corbett and Cherie Blair KC as well as current members of the Labour Shadow Cabinet Anneliese Dodds, Rosena Allin-Khan and Anneliese Dodds. Other personal highlights of the term included a (now very topical) talk with Graham Smith, the CEO of the anti-monarchist pressure group Republic, a talk by feminist Labour historian Nan Sloane and a thought-provoking discussion of leftist pessimism with Oly Durose. It was an honour and certainly a great pleasure to be able to meet and interview to all of these speakers for the benefit of OULC members and to be able to enrich our understanding of what

We could never have achieved all of this without the help of our dedicated committee – running the club wouldn’t have been possible without all your hard work and commitment. We are grateful beyond words for all you’ve done, the dedication of all of you has been an inspiration. An especially huge thanks to Els Staddon, one of our future co-chairs, for her immense dedication to this club. From helping us emailing speakers, to pulling together the graphic design for this very edition, we both owe Els a huge debt – our term would have been so much the worse without her help. She will forever be our Treasurer! Another quick thank you to Baroness Royall for her continued kind help with all things Labour.

Trinity Term 2022’s Look Left drops at a time of unprecedented political turmoil. We have had three Tory prime ministers this year alone. With a Conservative government slowly self-destructing and a cabinet filled with the smallest of small fries, saturated in an isolationist nationalism and economic illiteracy that poses an existential threat to the culture and prosperity of this country, it has never been clearer that a Labour government is a necessity. Use this publication as a starting point, one that engages with left-wing thought and modern politics in a refreshing variety of ways; the richness of leftism will always triumph over the fusty dullness of conservatism. We will see you all very soon in a red Britain.

In solidarity always, Hari and Maia