How should politics change?New Generation Young Writers Competition

Chartist is hosting a competition to seek out the best of young writers who can write informed, creative, readable and incisive political journalism relevant for the 21st century.

We live in an age of growing threats to life on earth. The major challenges are the growing menace of human-made climate change, right wing nationalist populism, growing poverty and north-south inequality, wars and nuclear annihilation, global capitalism intensifying exploitation, and social divisions.

At the same time, we experience the development of modern technologies, robotics, artificial intelligence, and improved education and literacy, which can make huge advances for human life, reducing physical toil, improving health and wellbeing and promoting solidarity.

Our societies remain scarred by social inequalities, particularly the oppression of women and people of colour. Gendered discrimination, racism, ablism, and classism - to name a few prominent divisions - continue to divide societies.

What forms could human liberation take? What could be the politics to move our societies forward and shake off the bonds of inequality, discrimination and exploitation?

Chartist believes democratic socialism holds the answers. But we need to interrogate the meaning of the concept. What needs to change in western democratic capitalist regimes? How can communities empower themselves to overcome the inequalities and harms of modern day societies? What kind of electoral systems, what kind of government could move us forward? What should be the relationship between state and civil society organisations? How can democracy be developed to become the lifeblood of a new society?

We will be inviting contributions on these themes and more to widen the debate on the left. Every issue of the print magazine will devote several pages to printing a selection of articles varying in length from 400 to 1500 words. We will also be publishing submitted articles on our website.

Chartist has been publishing for over 50 years as a democratic left journal. We have a wide range of contributors, mainly from the Labour, trade union, green and radical left movements, from academics to activists, MPs, councillors, trade unionists and professional journalists.

The competition will be launched at Labour Party conference.

A range of judges will assess the contributions submitted over a six-month period.

There will be prizes in addition to the publication of writing. We will be looking for prose writing with an emphasis on clarity of argument and reporting. Pieces should be well researched and readable. They can be polemical or reportage, analysis or comment.

Judges will shortlist and select the winning contributions. Contributions from young people under 26 should be emailed to editor@chartist.org.uk.