We were proud to launch with his backing last year, and like the whole Labour movement, we are hopeful for this shared opportunity to write a transformative new chapter for the country. This is our final chance to defeat the forces of the authoritarian right, pull our party back from the brink and build a country that shifts power and wealth decisively back to the majority. To deliver on the promise of “change” we made in 2024, what comes next must be radically and meaningfully different. Business as usual must end.
We face a growing inequality and climate crisis, which is feeding spiralling living costs and a basic sense of scarcity, injustice and unfairness across the country. To tackle it, Labour must be prepared to invest in the bonds that hold communities together, pioneering a new political economy and rebuilding our broken democracy. In our recent paper, The Productive State: A Framework for Manchesterism, we set out in detail how this new settlement can take shape.
Facing international instability, Labour must champion solidarity, human rights, and collective action. We must reject the extraction, exploitation and grotesque inequalities promoted by domestic and global economic systems.
To win support for a popular, principled, and practical left politics, Labour must also change within. We must unlock the wisdom, talents, and energy of all of our members and our wider movement to lead the change our country so urgently needs. Our new leadership must root out the factionalism and insularity of recent years, embracing democracy, pluralism and participation.
This should start with the full implementation of the recommendations of the Forde Report on Labour Party culture. It also demands that our new leader’s first Cabinet properly represents our party’s tradition as a broad church, not a boys’ club. We hope, in particular, to see the appointment of a progressive Chancellor with vision, values and a record of delivering structural change; someone who understands the threat that climate breakdown poses to people and planet and who has the courage to rebuild our state’s productive capacity.
May’s devastating election results showed that, in every nation and region of the UK, vast swathes of voters have lost faith in Labour. Party membership has sunk to a dangerous low, and much of our movement feels dejected and disempowered. The process to change the leadership did little to address this at the grassroots. Labour have been given a lifeline - but we are by no means out of the woods. Change at the top is necessary, but to make hope a reality, this next chapter for Labour and the country must follow a genuinely different path.
We look forward to playing our part in making real change happen - but we do so with our eyes wide open to the scale of the fight ahead.
