Quiet radicalism

This deputy leadership election comes at a crucial moment – not just for the Labour Party, but for the entire country. The Tories, withering on the vine after a disastrous 14 years in power, are set to be replaced by something much darker: a Nigel Farage-led Reform party which acts as a gateway to the rise of fascism and the hard right. A Britain where Nigel Farage holds power is one that will be less tolerant and more cruel.

Farage’s rise will be aided and abetted by other parties who offer false hope but can’t deliver change. The Liberal Democrats, the Greens, Plaid, and the SNP all fall into this category. Only Labour is big enough and strong enough to prevent Farage taking power – and a second term Labour government is essential to deliver the progressive change our country so desperately needs.

It is in this context that our deputy leadership campaign needs to be understood: what will empower the Labour party to face down Farage and his band of racists, anti-vaxxers and domestic abusers at the next election? And to that end, what is the deputy leadership for?

If we listen to some media commentary, the deputy leadership is a ‘post for a northern woman’. What utter drivel. As I wrote for the Fabians in 2021: “Many of the concerns and priorities of the people who we need to vote Labour…are not actually that different between Darlington and Dagenham, or…between Hull and Hampstead.” This isn’t about regional or gender balance, and it certainly isn’t about a proxy war for the top job between two men. Look at John Prescott. Look at Harriet Harman. The best Labour deputy leaders had a seat at the cabinet table, and encouraged everyone else at it to remember how they got there and in whose interests they had pledged to serve. They encouraged the government to remember Labour’s values and to put them into action. They didn’t throw rocks from the outside – they took a mandate from the membership to the table and pushed for change.

I understand members are frustrated by some of the decisions we have taken in government and the story we have allowed our opponents to tell about us. I say we should push back, be proud and confident in what we have achieved, and go further and faster on progressive change.

As education secretary, I’ve opened school-based nurseries, revived Sure Start for a new generation, extended free school meals to more low-income families and opened breakfast clubs. On childcare, families are £7,500 better off thanks to reforms introduced on my watch, and we have capped the number of branded items schools can ask for to help families with the cost of living.

I have also stood up to vested interests. I faced day after day of attacks and scare stories over our policy to end tax breaks for private schools. I stood firm and asked people who could afford to send their children to private school to pay a little more. As a result, we have generated more money for public services, including our state schools.

The overlooked story of this government is one of quiet radicalism. The biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation; a publicly-owned energy generation company; NHS waiting lists falling; £150 off energy bills extended to more of the poorest households; and those who have the most being asked to pay a little more – whether private schools, millionaire landowners, or private jet owners.

This is a radical, redistributive Labour government in action. We need to shout about it more.

That’s why I have pledged to carry on Angela Rayner’s role as a campaigning deputy leader.  I will take this message of radical progressive change to every part if the country. If that means being criticised by vested interests, the right-wing media and bad faith actors, so be it – the stakes are simply too high.

I have pushed through popular progressive policies before. Now I am asking Labour members to give me a mandate which will allow me to push the government to go further and faster from my seat at the cabinet table.

Policies like ending the two-child limit. In my role as co-chair of the Child Poverty Task Force, I have said that ending the two-child limit is on the table.

Labour governments lift people out of poverty. It’s what we do, it’s why I’m in this party, and it’s why I’m in politics. I grew up in a tough council street in a single parent household. A neighbour pushed an envelope with a banknote through the letterbox one cold winter. “For Bridget’s coat,” it said.

This is how we beat Reform. They want to divide our country, while we want to find a common sense of purpose and solidarity among all of our people, regardless of background, gender, race, creed or class.

We won’t beat them, however, if we ourselves are divided as a party. We won’t win with a deputy leader on the outside, throwing rocks and with no clout.

Divided parties don’t win elections. Labour members know that better than most. We spent 14 long years in opposition because we couldn’t win elections, and saw the country suffer as a result.

That didn’t feed a single hungry child. It entertained the Westminster bubble, but it failed the people who the Labour party was founded to represent and who Labour governments are supposed to serve.

We won the last general election because we came together to show the country a different vision of the future.

I will unite our party around our common values, delivering our common aims and beating our opponents. And I will never lose sight of the country that our movement seeks to build, the progressive change we seek to deliver, and the vested interests we stand against.

That’s why this deputy leadership election is so important. Nigel Farage knows a divided Labour party is his best route to seizing power. A united Labour party battling for social justice can face him down.