Britain's Next Decade - Ed Balls MP

Let me start by thanking your General Secretary, Sunder Katwala, and all the team at the Fabian Society for all the support you have given both Seema Malhotra and myself as Chair and Vice-Chair over the past year.

It is an honour to launch this new Fabian "Next Decade" lecture series tonight – six months to the day before we will celebrate our first full decade of a Labour Government.

But tonight I will urge you all to lift your sights - as I am sure future speakers in this series will too - and look ahead to the future challenges facing not just the Labour party but Britain and indeed the World.

At present, there is a great temptation for us as a Labour Party to look inwards. We could easily focus this lecture series on Labour's next decade and the political challenges we face to renew ourselves in power.

It is tempting - because those challenges are very real.

After nearly ten years in office, there have been great achievements and we are much more experienced. But we know we need to renew and revitalise – intellectually and organisationally – and deal with the consequences of past difficult decisions.

And over the coming months we will also need to manage a leadership transition while in power. And as I have argued at past Fabian seminars, British post-war history is littered with examples of leadership transitions within the governing party - Churchill to Eden, Macmillan to Home, Wilson to Callaghan, Thatcher to Major - which went badly awry.

But I have also argued that we are in a strong position to confound the history books and get this right:

• because Tony Blair has made a commitment that no previous Prime Minister has made: to deliver a stable and orderly transition;
• because our transition is happening in a period of economic strength - in marked contrast to the last hundred years of British politics when governments invariably fell apart during periods of economic failure;
• and most important, because today's Labour party is politically united - in marked contrast to all these past transitions - when ideological divides became unbridgeable and factions took hold.

We are worlds away from the acrimony and division that scarred our Conference and the Parliamentary Labour party in the 1970s and early 1980s - or the Tories in the late 1980s.

Today's Labour party is not ideologically split on Europe or the environment. Nor are we divided on the priority we give to tackling child poverty, or the balance between tax, spending and borrowing.

Of course, in any party there will be vigorous debate and strong views. It is right that after nearly a decade in power we do have the confidence to stand back, ask difficult questions, debate new ideas and discuss openly how we address the big challenges of the future.

Which brings me to our new Fabian lecture series.

Because, as I will argue tonight, Britain and the World are at a crossroads.

And it is only a Labour government, united around our progressive values, that can rise to meet the global challenges we face.

We all know we are living in a time of rapid and dislocating change. Global integration, technological advances and new cultural trends are leading to rapid, exciting but sometimes jarring changes.

The way we and others respond to these challenges will shape not just Labour's future – but Britain's and the World's.

That is why I believe the Fabian Society is right to title this series not Labour's next decade but Britain's next decade.

Over the past decade, Britain has changed. I believe it has changed for the better. Most of us here tonight are proud of the achievements our Labour government has made – be it the minimum wage, our investment and improvements in health and education or our fight against poverty at home and abroad.

I think the greatest achievement of all has been winning the globalisation argument: we have shown that a left of centre government – in a competitive and open world – can deliver economic stability and advance the cause of both prosperity and social justice.

But our task is getting more difficult. We have many more arguments to win, challenges and fears to overcome and opportunities to make the most of. In the next decade Britain and the world will see:

• even faster change – bringing with it both opportunities and challenges to our individual and collective security;
• and new challenges, most importantly climate change, which threaten our ability to deliver rising prosperity and tackle poverty at home and abroad

The Right are - as ever - pessimistic. They claim it can't be done – that governments are powerless and need to get out of the way, that international cooperation is not in our best interest and that rising inequality is inevitable.

So I will argue tonight that as progressives our task in the decade to come is to prove, once again, that we can deliver economic growth as well as fairness. And that at the same time we can respond to an ever-changing security situation, combat nationalism and protectionism and protect our environment for our children and their children too.

If we and others get it wrong, we face decades ahead of division, stagnation and conflict.

If we get it right, we can win public trust that progressive politics has the answers not just here in Britain but round the world – and I do believe that no country is better placed than Britain to prosper and lead in the 21st century.

This is our challenge for the next decade.

The Challenge of Globalisation

Let me start with our changing world.

We are now in a new era of global economic change and industrial restructuring - as dramatic as the industrial revolution of the 18th century.

And we have all debated and discussed at length the challenge of globalisation and seen in our own country and in our travels abroad how these globalising trends manifest:

• the way in which, in a world of global brands and companies, a decision by a company's headquarters in one part of the world can impact directly on local communities in another;
• the widening wage gap in the developed world between skilled and unskilled workers;
• the pace at which events in one country impact round the world, be that a stock market crash in America, an outbreak of bird flu, or the publication of a tendentious cartoon;
• and the insecurity, alienation or nationalism that change has sometimes brought in its wake.

Globalisation is not just an economic process or theory, it is a human challenge - a reality for businesses and working people who often have to make daily decisions about how to stay competitive, keep their jobs or update their skills.

And while my constituents see the benefits in terms of new investments from abroad and cheaper goods in the shops, they also fear the effect it can have on their own lives and their security.

My constituency in West Yorkshire has benefited from new industrial expansion including Coca-Cola's largest bottling plant in the world servicing the UK market with high-technology production. But we have also lost many mining and textile jobs and recently suffered the blow of Bombardier closing its historic local train-building plant - a decision taken in Canada which costs 400 local jobs in Horbury.

Yet despite these pressures, things are radically different today to how they were 10 or 20 years ago. Today unemployment is low in our area and below, not above, the national average.

When in our area in the 1980s and 1990s coal mines closed, NUM members moved from well-paid employment to redundancy and unemployment. In this decade, when the nearby Prince of Wales pit finally closed for geological reasons, all of the 400 miners had a new job to go.

And when Bombadier announced its plans, our economic development agencies and the local Employment Service's Rapid Response Taskforce stepped in to help skilled workers to find new jobs and unskilled workers to re-train.

And economic change is bringing new opportunities too. Just down the road, a local company is doing well making new solar panels - creating new jobs and helping us meet the challenge of climate change.

I do not, in any way, underestimate the shock and suffering for any man or woman who after 20 years of service is told they are losing their job and must retrain – or the stress and insecurity that the risk of losing a job can cause.

But these local examples do show that, while we know that we cannot stand in the way of these global forces of change and restructuring, we are not passive in the face of change – that a modern industrial and employment policy can intervene to help companies and trade union members – my constituents – cope with change, win new investment and sustain good and skilled jobs.

So this is my starting point. With more jobs in our economy than ever before, record levels of foreign direct investment and lower prices for many consumer goods, I believe Britain has benefited from these global economic forces.

Just look at the way our financial services industry has become the global market leader. Just look at how in areas like clean-coal and other environmental technologies, British industry is already in the lead and can win new investment and jobs from around the world.

At the same time, our policy of allowing skilled and needed migrants to come to our country has once again, as in centuries past, brought new idea, tackled skill shortages and boosted our economy.

And round the world too, by opening up new markets for goods produced in developing countries, global economic integration can help us to raise incomes and cut poverty across the developing world. According to recent estimates further trade reform could lift as many as 95 million people out of extreme poverty.

Embracing change, being innovative and open to new ideas, encouraging ownership and talents from around the world, investing in skills and new technologies – these are the keys to success in the modern economy.

The world at a crossroads

Yet at the same time, global economic integration is dislocating. There are losers as well as winners and while the gains are widely dispersed, the short term costs are concentrated, making them more visible and more keenly felt.

And with manufacturing jobs in decline across the developed world, there are worrying signs of reaction, protectionism and economic nationalism rising up in many countries and continents

In the US, protectionist sentiment has been on the rise – in ports, steel and threats of retaliatory trade sanctions against China. In Latin America, the talk is of a new economic nationalism while closer to home in parts of Europe, protectionist sentiment has manifested itself, often under the banner of "economic patriotism". Just look at recent and widely publicised cases of government interference in cross-border mergers.

At the same time, the world trade talks have now stalled, with many siren voices hailing their demise and seeking instead to start negotiating bilateral arrangements which would risk locking out the poorest countries from the benefits of trade and fuelling a new mercantilism.

And these protectionist pressures are growing just as we face new challenges which demand international cooperation not isolationism.

As Sir Nick Stern's landmark report on Monday made clear: climate change is a real threat to our prosperity, the poorest countries are most at risk, and the only feasible solutions require multilateral action and global leadership.

The Stern report makes a compelling and overwhelming case. And it could prove to be the turning point we need in the climate change debate. But whether his warnings will be heeded around the world remains to be seen.

And how we respond is critical. For while some on the right deny that climate change is a real threat, others – on left and right – argue that protecting the environment means economic growth cannot continue or that open trade should be curtailed. That is a recipe for economic stagnation at home, while keeping poor countries poor – and must be resisted by modern progressive politics.

And what is true on the environment is also true in other critical areas. It is only by global cooperation, America, Europe and Asia, developed and developing countries, Christian and Arab nations, working together, that we can deliver global security, tackle nuclear proliferation, root out Islamic extremism and promote a fair and lasting peace in the Middle East.

So the threat to global prosperity and security from these protectionist and nationalist trends must not be under estimated.

And nor should we be fooled into thinking that Britain is immune. We have a fine and long-standing open tradition and commitment to tolerance. I believe those values have made Britain what it is today and continue to underpin our communities and our economy.

Yet at the same time in many parts of Britain at our recent local elections, the British National Party had their best ever results. In my own constituency they fought every seat. And in the seat next door, they came second in every ward.

The BNP's campaigns start from concerns which many hold in our communities - about insecurity, and identity and too often very local issues around poor housing or inadequate transport.

And they then build on top of that a pernicious narrative in which external threats and racial difference are at fault - a message which ends in a prescription based on nationalism, xenophobia and racism. We must expose and confront this dangerous nonsense at every opportunity.

Global pessimists

So my argument tonight is that we must act now to counter these anti-globalisation pressures before they take root. But that means first confronting the pessimists - from both left and right - who say it can't be done.

For some on the left, a commitment to social justice and environmentalism quickly turns to oppositionism. At its most extreme you have a demonstrator outside a recent G8 Summit with a placard reading "World wide movement against globalisation".

They claim that national governments are impotent in the face of global capital markets, that free trade inevitably means lower standards, rising inequality and environmental damage. And then claim the only solution is protectionism and a retreat from global markets.

I think we should be clear - this is not the right model within which to pursue progressive policies for our future.

And while there are some in our movement who lean towards protectionism in trade - or would seek to rule out outsourcing as a matter of principle - in the main the British labour and trade union movement - with the British people - has stood apart from its brother and sister trade unions in other parts of the world, including America, in its opposition to protectionism.

At the same time, the Right is clear and consistent in its response: that globalisation places great - indeed decisive - limits on the ability of government - any government - to pursue an active economic policy, deliver social justice at home or abroad, or cooperate internationally.

And this is a view which you consistently see from right-wing parties and governments round the world - a rightwing response to global change designed to nip progressive politics in the bud.

I believe there are four myths which characterise this Right-Wing Pessimism – and you will recognise them all from recent Conservative speeches and policy commissions:

• Myth 1 is that national Governments are impotent because national governments are just too small, Keynesian intervention has proved ineffective and full employment is just not consistent with stability. And so the only thing Government can do is try to deliver low inflation and cut the size of the state. Whatever the share of GDP on public spending, globalisation means it must go down.
• Myth 2 is that only free markets work, that the only way to sustain jobs is to deregulate and let markets rip, cut taxes and hope that by keeping costs down we can compete.
• Myth 3 says that internationalism is over, that the world is just too complex and national self-interest now rules, making co-operation in Europe or globally on security policy or climate change futile. Indeed even national Governments can't credibly deliver - which is why the response to the desire for local involvement is to replace the state with charity and local voluntary organisations
• And myth 4 says that rising inequality is inevitable - because Government can't support the burden of an active welfare state without stifling the economy and destroying jobs.

Rising prosperity and social justice

After nearly a decade of Labour government, I am not a pessimist about globalisation or the ability of national Governments - if they choose and can win and sustain public support - to pursue progressive policies in Government.

As a recent TUC report on globalisation concluded: "The task is neither to halt globalisation in its tracks nor to simply accept that an unregulated capitalism is inevitable".

The fact is that globalisation can be managed well or badly, fairly or unfairly - and Government, working with business and trade unions, can make genuine political choices about the kind of society in which we want to live.

But that also demands we tackle head-on the pressure points of globalisation.

So on the economy, we on the centre-left know that when the pace of change is so rapid, in the modern world people need a government on their side to open up new opportunities and deliver security and strong communities.

Here in Britain I believe we have shown we can put in place a new economic policy to establish and entrench stability, backed with a new employment policy to generate new employment opportunities and equip young people and the long-term unemployed with the skills they need to be flexible and adapt to new technologies.

We have shown that you can have a national minimum wage and rising employment - and far from being driven to lower standards, we have proved that in today's global economy we can have a full employment economy and legislate for enhanced rights at work.

When some argue that the rise of China and Asia and the globalisation of manufacturing means that we must sacrifice our goals of full employment and good decent paying jobs, that globalisation means accepting rising wage inequality or fewer rights at work or a privatised NHS, our response must once again be to confound the sceptics.

We know that in an open and far more rapidly changing global trading economy, flexibility - the ability to respond quickly - is not an option. It is a necessary precondition of success and of delivering greater prosperity, fairness and security.

And we know, too, that it is the responsibility of Government to equip companies and people to master change - through investment in skills and training, through the best transitional help for people moving between jobs and by combining the national minimum wage with the integration of taxes and benefits through Tax Credits within a progressive tax system.

And in this era of global change and insecurity it is right that we have a system of managed migration. We need to control our borders so we know who is coming in and coming out, but at the same time we need to make the case for the benefits of economic migration within a managed system. In that way, workers from across the world who have a contribution to make to our economy can come here and do so – adding value to our economy without reducing the employment opportunities of British workers.

And on the environment, too, over the last thirty years, with the right kinds of intervention and standards, we have shown we can have economic growth and at the same time make our air less polluted and our rivers and beaches cleaner safer. Our challenge now is to go much further in showing, through global co-operation, we can have growth and open trade while reducing carbon emissions.

BRITAIN'S NEXT DECADE

Yes, there are new challenges. But I believe we can make the case for how open markets and free and fair trade can advance our goals of rising prosperity and social justice and tackle climate change - and at the same time expose the myths of globalisation from left and right.

Let me end by highlighting four areas where I believe we need to do more to show we can win the argument for opportunity and security in a globalising world - and then set out the dividing lines with the Tories this implies.

Skills and Economic Policy

In my view, raising skills levels is the central economic challenge of the next decade. We will only be able to sustain rising prosperity and make sure it is broad-based by getting more people into skilled jobs.

China and India are now turning out more engineers, more computer scientists and more university graduates – four million a year, more than the whole of Europe and America combined. Our education system must be geared up to empowering young people and adults with training and skills opportunities and to ensuring adult men and women can move from low skills to high skills.

I believe there is a growing recognition that in skills policy the old voluntary and ad-hoc approaches have not worked. The forthcoming Leitch review will set out the challenge at the Pre-Budget Report. We must now debate how we can move to a post-voluntary approach to skills training with a new relationship between the government, employers and individuals in which everyone plays their part and accepts their responsibilities - government to provide the resources and opportunities, employers to ensure all their employees have opportunities to train, trade unions and individuals to take up the opportunities on offer.

Just as unemployment benefit set the direction for post-war employment policy, with a new framework of rights and responsibilities our central reform in 1997, so rights and responsibilities in skills policy will define the employment policy of the 21st century.

Strong and Fair Communities

But in the face of global pressures, we need both economic prosperity and security with strong and fair communities. There are still too many people in our country who feel that the quality of the public services they use are not good enough. And too easily they blame migrants for jumping the queue for social housing or claiming benefits they somehow do not deserve.

And however unfounded these accusations, we know that despite all the progress made over the last decade, great social challenges remain:

• too many young people are still leaving school at 16 without a course or an apprenticeship to go on to;
• thousands of men and women are still locked out of employment because of incapacity or a lack of affordable childcare;
• we still do not have enough affordable housing;
• and too many communities are challenged by crime and disorder.

We cannot win the case for globalisation and leave these issues unaddressed. That is why the recent Fabian Life-Chances report challenges us to go even further. It is why the Fabian Society was right to focus this year's January conference on citizenship, Britishness and how we build strong and cohesive communities.

As we look towards the next decade, it is right that our forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review is based on a clear analysis of the long-term challenges we face – not just global change and technological change but also demographic change and all that implies for our public services in health and social care.

And in the coming weeks as we respond to the Stern review on the environment, the Leitch review on skills, the Barker review on housing and planning, the Eddington review on transport infrastructure, and the Varney review of public service reform, we will set out an agenda for our public services which will deliver rising prosperity, stronger communities, and protect our environment.

Environment

My third challenge for progressive politics is whether we can rise to this environmental challenge without sacrificing our wider objective of ensuring rising prosperity and social justice - not just in Britain but around the world.

Sir Nick Stern's report was definitive in its conclusion that unless the world takes urgent action to tackle climate change, not only will the environment suffer, but the global economy and the planet's poorest people will face catastrophe too.

The global challenge we face in dealing with climate change has never been starker, the case for action has never been so overwhelming and the costs of doing nothing never been so high.

But that does not mean the end of economic prosperity and civilisation as we know it, as a shrinking number of conservative politicians in the US still protest. Nor does it mean that we have to shut up shop and let a new environmental protectionism take root.

As Stern's report concludes: "the world does not need to choose between averting climate change and promoting growth and development." If we put in place the right global incentives to cut carbon and emissions, we can be both pro-growth and pro-green.

As he makes clear, the only feasible solutions to a problem of such magnitude as this are through multilateral action and international cooperation. Action in one country alone will not do the trick. That is why we were right to put the environment on the G8 and EU Presidency agendas last year. That is why we need the EU emissions trading scheme to become the hub of a global carbon market.

If Britain continues to take a lead in Europe and in international negotiations, as we have done on both Kyoto and European emissions trading, we can both meet our environmental obligations at the same time as having a growing economy.

As Environment Secretary David Miliband has said "you cannot be an environmentalist without being an internationalist".

Europe

Which brings me to Europe, my fourth challenge for progressive politics - an area I believe will be a central dividing line in British politics in the coming decade. Because greater cooperation with our European partners will be at the centre of a progressive response to globalisation on the environment and more widely.

But we have to break out of the old caricatured debate in Britain about Europe.

Looking back to the twentieth century we were for too long presented in Britain with only two schools of thought.

On the one hand, an anti-Europeanism that believed the definition of Britishness lay in rejecting anything from the EU.

On the other hand, a pro-European view borne of the belief that Europe was the sole solution to the problems of British decline, policy paralysis and apparent un-governability.

Sensible people of our generation reject this false choice. Instead, in 2006, the sensible mainstream view is pro-British and pro-European – a hard-headed pro-Europeanism which puts our national interest first but understands that we are stronger by co-operating with our European partners.

We have shown since 1997 that we are willing to stand firm in European debates where our national interests would be damaged. That is what we did in the debates on proposals for a harmonised savings tax. But we also showed that through debate and discussion we could win the argument for a different and global approach to savings.

And on the Euro, we made our decision in 2003 on the basis of a hard-headed assessment of our national interest.

At the same time, London has been strengthened as a global financial centre because of Britain's membership of the EU. Our membership of the EU has brought new investment and new jobs to Britain. And through co-operation we have achieved peace and stability within Europe in the post-war period -something that has never been achieved in any previous era.

So we know that in the debates to come our national interest is best served by being at the table in Europe to win the arguments that count - on the single market and competition policy, on CAP and the Budget, on the environment and enlargement.

Our task is to create an outward-facing, flexible Europe that can meet the fundamental challenges of a global economy, and deliver opportunity, fairness and prosperity for its citizens - a Global Europe based on both flexibility and fairness. And in any discussion of institutional reforms we should always start with this test – will reform help us make sensible decisions that address these fundamental challenges?

We also know - and it is even more true in today's integrated economy – that an effective and well-functioning single market requires an effective and well-functioning social dimension.

I believe the introduction of new requirements for information and consultation in April of last year is exactly the kind of European social dimension which the single market needs. It deals with cross-border issues. It requires both employers and trade unions to accept their responsibilities and work together, in the belief that we achieve more through co-operation than by standing apart. It will, if implemented properly, provide the kind of advance warning of economic restructuring and greater consultation for companies operating across European borders that a single market requires.

In my view, we should have acted much more quickly in the last parliament to embrace this directive as an example of the right kind of social dimension in practice – and we now need to ensure that it is implemented properly. Both employers and trade unions have a responsibility to make it work.

But whether on the single market or other critical issues like the environment, world trade, security, immigration, enlargement and wider foreign policy, we know that the only way to get the best deal for Britain is by working with our European partners. We will not stand up for British interests by leaving the table or withdrawing to the extremes and anti-European fringes of the big European debates.

Modern Conservatism

Which brings me to the Conservatives. Because as we debate these policy proposals, we must also expose the reality of David Cameron's so-called new conservatism.

Take Europe and the environment.

Of course we must all make our own individual contributions: switching off the lights, using public transport and recycling where we can. But as politicians it is no good doing that if, at the same time, you oppose the policies that can make a significant difference to tackling global climate change.

David Cameron's problem is not really that his chauffeur drives his shoes and shirts to work while he cycles for the cameras. It is not simply that he has consistently opposed our Climate Change Levy while having no alternative policies to cut carbon emissions.

His real problem when it comes to the environment is that while we know that international co-operation is the only way to tackle global climate change, he rejects that co-operation in Europe and internationally.

Because in David Cameron we have the most anti-European Tory leader they have ever had – much more so than Margaret Thatcher.

And as Mrs Thatcher understood, you cannot stand up for British interests by leaving the table, rejecting international collective responsibility, and withdrawing to the anti-European and extremist fringe in splendid isolation.

So we will highlight this truth: David Cameron's anti-European stance means he will not be able to broker the agreements that Britain and the world needs if we are to achieve a pro-growth and pro-poor solution to climate change. It is not just hypocrisy, but ideology that is blinding David Cameron to the European way forward on tackling global climate change

But David Cameron's anti-Europeanism has a deeper root – because when you strip away the spin and study the reality of Cameron's supposedly new Conservative Party, the intellectual underpinning of David Cameron's modern conservatism is unchanged from what came before - a pessimistic antipathy to collective responsibility or government action.

Take economic policy.

At a time when we know we need to do more to equip people to move from job to job, the Conservatives are committed to cutting public spending, abolishing the New Deal and ignoring the responsibilities of government and employers to invest in skills – just as they opposed the windfall tax on the privatised utilities which paid for it.

Just when we need more investment in education, in skills and in science so that we can compete in the global economy, the Conservatives want to abolish our successful Research & Development tax credit.

We know that their 'proceeds of growth rule' and their desire for tax cuts at the top, will end up with severe public spending cuts across the board – which means no new investment in social housing, in expanding Sure Start or supporting disabled people back to work through Pathways to Work.

The same laissez-faire Conservative right who told us time and time again in the '80s and '90s that full employment was beyond reach and that national economic policies should only focus on delivering low inflation and cutting the size of the state now publish plans for tax cuts at the top - like abolishing inheritance tax and ending stamp duty – all costing £21 billion but without any idea how to pay for them.

This is the just the same old Conservative Party.

And this is the ideological divide in British politics:

• between laissez-faire conservatives who do not accept collective responsibility and would cut public investment, leave the vulnerable unsupported and expect charities to step in to fill the gap – a cut-price alternative to government.
• and progressives who believe in rights and responsibilities - individual and collective - and know that a strong and cohesive society requires a supportive enabling government, working with a strengthened voluntary sector, on people's side and guaranteeing fairness and justice for all;

We will champion individual potential and protect individual liberties - whether that is in anti-terrorism legislation or by protecting the right of people to practice their religion.

But we know we can only do so by also accepting that we have responsibilities as well as rights, mutual obligations as well as individual needs and that we must work together with our international partners to achieve our goals.

Conclusion

So issue by issue, global challenge by global challenge, policy by policy, we must expose the reality that the Tories do not have the answers.

Let us challenge David Cameron to tell us where he stands. And we will expose not just his hypocrisy, but the issues of substance which divide us:

• our difference of values and the priority we attach to both social justice and individual liberty;
• his ideological opposition to collective responsibility and collective action to deal with a changing global economy, end child poverty or tackle climate change.

So in the Fabian lectures and discussions to come, let us set out the challenges our country faces and let's debate the policies we will need to respond to them.

We must prove that Labour is the only party that can meet the challenges of globalisation, invest in skills, tackle climate change and build a fairer society - not just because of our competence but because of our values.

We must win the arguments – and in so doing, we must and we will remain in the centre-ground of British politics.

And we should have confidence.

Because as a country and a labour movement we have experienced past waves of global change before.

Indeed the trade union movement and the Labour Party were formed a hundred years ago during what was then a debate in our country over open trade versus protectionism – when following Keir Hardie's rejection of Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform crusade in 1903 – which the TUC described as "nothing better than a delusive fallacy" – John Burns looked back on the 1906 General Election and concluded that 'the new Labour Party' and their trade union colleagues 'were floated into Parliament on the river of free trade'.

And we have also experienced what happened when that first wave of globalisation turned sour in the 1930s and mass unemployment, protectionism and reaction gripped the world. And we should be proud that in those difficult times it was the Labour movement that led the fight against both protectionism and fascism.

This tenacity and determination to fight on for what we believe has been matched – across the British labour movement – by an unstinting commitment to fighting for social justice beyond our borders: campaigning now for over a century for rights to trade union recognition around the world, an end to child labour, debt relief and increased international aid flows and the opening of trade markets to developing countries.

And it is this same strength of purpose and commitment to social justice that will be needed to face the new challenges of globalisation in the 21st century.

And by proving to the country that we can meet these challenges, we can win the public's trust and ensure that Britain's next decade is a Labour decade.