Dan Jarvis: Everything our movement has achieved wasn’t just born out of victories, but also defeats

This is the full text of the speech by Dan Jarvis MP to Scottish Labour dinner in Edinburgh, Thursday 24th September 2015.

Dan-Jarvis-007

Good evening everyone, it’s great to be here.

I want to start by thanking Kezia Dugdale – for those kind words and for everything you’ve already done for us as the new Leader of Scottish Labour.

Everyone who’s met Kezia knows that she is a force of nature.

Kezia, you’ve put our Labour values at the heart of our ambitions for Scotland’s future, and begun making Scottish Labour a party that people want to be part of again –

You and Alex Rowley deserve our thanks, our tributes, and our applause for everything you are doing.

I also want to pay tribute to a man I’m proud to sit alongside in Parliament, our brilliant Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray.

Ian, I know everyone in this room felt the pain at the loss of our colleagues who were defeated across the country.

But the faith your constituents showed in you – when you were defending the smallest majority of any MP in Scotland – is a testament to your outstanding service to your constituency.

We are so fortunate to have you as our champion for Scotland in Parliament – facing down the SNP week in, week out.

It’s our job now to make sure you have a bit more company on those green benches – and I think there’s one or two people here tonight who stand ready to help you with that.

We’re all in this party because we want Labour to win.

Because we all want to live in a country that is governed for the many, not the few.

So we all need to get behind our new Leader and Deputy Leader, Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson, and support them in that effort, together, as a united Labour team.

Because this is an important time for our party and a pivotal moment for our United Kingdom.

And it feels apt to be here in Edinburgh tonight.

I’ve always felt to be in Scotland is to stand on the shoulders of political giants.

This was the nation that gave birth to the first five leaders of the Labour Party, and where our movement first began.

So I thought I would tell you a little about what Scotland means to me.

Because some of the most memorable moments of my life have been right here.

Moments like when I was here for the Millennium – celebrating New Year’s Eve at Edinburgh Castle.

I remember that.

One of the best holidays I’ve ever had – my honeymoon on the Isle of Skye.

I remember that.

My stag night, out on the town here in Edinburgh – actually I can’t say I do remember all of that…

But I do remember the lessons I learnt from being stranded on a small island, just off the coast of Mull, when I was 14 years old.

My Mum and Dad decided that 24 hours alone on an uninhabited island in the Inner Hebrides was just what my brother and I needed…

They dropped us onto the rocks and left us there alone, with a tent and a white sheet in case we needed to signal for help. Although we weren’t sure how that was supposed to work in the dark!

But looking back on those days now, I think it helped give me a passion for adventure – one of the things that took me into the British Army.

And it was the Army that brought me back to Scotland.

I was on HMS Bulwark and we were deployed on a training exercise in the Highlands.

We landed on a beach off the north-west coast in the dark, and marched over the hills to Cape Wrath – the very tip of mainland Britain.

Thanks to a Labour government, we were slightly better equipped than when I was camping on that island…

Some of my first political campaigning experiences were here in Scotland too.

I remember trudging through the snow a decade ago during the Dunfermline & West Fife by-election. It was there where I first met Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.

I was made Alistair’s driver for the day. And I soon found out why.

Because I remember we got in the car, and he said to me – in that typically considered, Alistair, way:

“On balance, I have concluded that the running over of one’s constituents comes with electoral consequences.”

So that definitely put me at ease – so much so that I drove him straight through a red light. Now that’s not as bad as running someone over – only Alistair was Secretary of State for Transport at the time.

I remember I dropped him off at home – picturing the terrible newspaper headlines – and expecting he would want to get away from me as quickly as possible.

But I remember he insisted that I come inside for what was supposed to be a cup of tea, and then turned into dinner, and how he and his wife Maggie showed me great kindness.

I think we all saw that decency and character not only in how Alistair served this city as a Member of Parliament for nearly 30 years, but in how he led the campaign to keep our country together – and we should all thank him for that.

And then there’s memories from more recent campaigns – including during the referendum last year.

I remember arriving at Glasgow railway station with over 100 Labour MPs and walking through the city to Donald Dewar’s statue.

I remember knocking on doors with Labour MPs from all over the UK.

I remember the countless good conversations we had with people enthused by politics for the first time – including with people who disagreed with our cause.

But I also remember how one or two people told us to ‘go home.’ In their view, we were not welcome.

So one year on, as an MP who represents a town in England, who’s lived in Wales, served in Northern Ireland, and who loves Scotland, let me say this.

You don’t have to be Scottish to love Scotland. It wasn’t just Scots cheering for Andy Murray, and Jamie Murray, and Team GB in the tennis last weekend.

We are one people, better as one United Kingdom, and we must never ever forget that.

 ‘By the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone.’

It’s written into the very DNA of our party.

And it’s with that in mind that I also want to thank all of you.

We all know it has not been easy time for our party – both here in Scotland and across the country.

But our party would be nothing without our members.

Pounding pavements, stuffing envelopes, making cups of tea, phone canvassing, organising in our communities, giving people lifts – our members are Labour’s most precious asset.

We’re a team.

Now we’re a much bigger team – with lots of new teammates.

And that’s a good thing. We should celebrate that. It’s fantastic that so many people want to join our party.

Because it’s going to take every one of us to succeed in those Holyrood elections in May.

Yes, we’ve suffered defeats this past year.

No-one shies away from that.

But we should have confidence.

Because everything our movement has achieved wasn’t just born out of victories.

It was also born out of defeats.

It was a defeat – a by-election in Mid-Lanarkshire in 1888 – that was one of the catalysts that helped lead to the creation of the Labour movement here in Scotland.

The Labour candidate in that election was a certain Keir Hardie.

He won just 8% of the vote – but it helped lead to the founding of the Scottish Labour Party.

It started our journey as a movement for change across these islands.

From a party that didn’t hold a single seat in Scotland just over a century ago – and that had just two Members of Parliament across the entire United Kingdom – to a party that transformed Britain.

We’ve done this before. Who says we cannot do it again?

Labour has always been at its best when we’ve put our party at the service of the nation.

Now the people need us to do it again. And we must not let them down.

Because let’s be quite clear about what David Cameron & George Osborne are trying to do.

The Tories are very deliberately trying to put our party out of business once and for all.

They’re going after our funding through their unfair and unfounded attack on the trade unions. They’re gerrymandering the constituency boundaries so that they are rigged in their favour. And they’re taking our policies and pretending they are the party of working people.

This is not government in the national interest. This is government in the vested interests of the Conservative Party – and we must not let them get away with it.

Because who else is going to hold this Government to account?

Look at the damage they’ve inflicted in just a few short months:

Abolishing the targets Labour put in place to cut child poverty.

Going after the tax credits that 3 million working people rely on.

Pledging to abolish the Human Rights Act.

And balancing our budget on the back of cuts to support for the vulnerable and the disabled.

5 months of this government already feels too much for me – that’s why we need to make sure we win in 5 years.

And we need to hold the SNP to account too.

Because you wouldn’t know it, but the SNP have been in office since 2007.

I saw Kezia at First Ministers Questions last week asking what the Scottish Government are doing to help the poorest kids who start school already a year behind pupils from richer parts of the country.

Did you see what Nicola Sturgeon said?

‘Look at the opinion polls – we must be doing alright’

I’m sorry – how does an opinion poll help a parent who’s worried their child will leave primary school without being able to read and write?

How do opinion polls help the patient stuck on a waiting list for medical care?

And how does that help the entrepreneur trying to get a business off the ground, or the pensioner who doesn’t feel safe on their own streets?

The SNP prefer to use the language of opposition, but they’re actually in government – and they should start behaving like it.

So we’ve got to take on the Tories.

We’ve got to take on the SNP.

We’ve got to win the battle for our continued membership of the European Union – that we must do.

But there’s another battle we need to win.

A bigger battle.

And that’s the battle for our United Kingdom.

You know better than anyone that the very idea of Britain is being challenged as it never has been before.

It was a year ago last week that Scotland voted to stay part of the United Kingdom.

Voted to stay part of the United Kingdom – and the SNP should remember that.

We’ve seen in recent weeks that the efforts to break our country apart didn’t end last September.

Who knew that Nicola Sturgeon’s definition of  ‘a once in a generation moment’ was less than twelve months…?

But we also know there is a real hunger for change in our country today.

I’ve seen it travelling across the country.

And I can understand why.

Because the referendum raised questions that went far beyond Scotland: they touched on the whole make-up of power across Britain.

Our place in the world, people’s alienation from politics, different views over our shared identity, lack of trust in our institutions, feeling powerless in modern life.

These are big, difficult questions.

And if our movement is to provide the answers, the hope that people are looking for, then we are all going to have to work together – wherever we were born in these islands.

Because here is the difference between our party and the voices of separation: Labour’s ambitions for Scotland are much greater than merely to change our constitutional arrangements.

It is nothing less than the creation of a fairer, more decent, and more prosperous society.

We need everyone across the UK to help make the positive case for that better, future Union.

It is not just your job.

It’s not just ‘Scottish Labour’s’ job.

It is our task, together, as one movement, to campaign for the fairer and more socially just Britain that we want to see – one where we’re stronger because we share, look out for one another, and help each other succeed.

It shouldn’t take a referendum to force us to make that case.

We should be doing it day-in, day-out.

We’ve had a summer focused on leadership and deputy leadership contests.

But if we want a Labour victory, if we want a government that’s decent and ambitious for everyone, then we’ve all got to roll up our sleeves and play our part.

Because we know from history that you don’t have to be a politician to change the world.

Let me give you an example.

It’s a story I first heard not long before I was in Glasgow for the First World War centenary last year.

It’s the story of a woman called Mary Barbour.

Some of you may know it.

Mary lived here in Scotland 100 years ago.

Politics meant as little to her then as it does to some of the people most disillusioned with our politics today.

But in 1914, something changed.

Mary’s husband David left to go fight in the trenches.

She was left alone at home to look after their two young sons.

And with so many men away at the front, the city’s private landlords sensed an opportunity.

They cynically began hiking the rents of Mary and her neighbours.

Trying to make an easy profit out of people they didn’t think could fight back.

But in Mary Barbour’s case, they messed with the wrong woman.

Working with her friends, Mary organised a rent strike.

Together they led tenants in a protest that grew into 20,000 people.

They became known as “Mrs Barbour’s Army.”

Together, they forced the government to take immediate action to protect people from unfair rent increases – the first ever rent protection legislation.

Mrs Barbour didn’t even have a vote when the war broke out.

But her experience led to her to become one of the first women to represent her city as an elected Labour councillor.

Mrs Barbour didn’t wait for someone to tell her she could make a difference. She just did it.

She didn’t ask for anyone’s permission to say what she knew to be right. She just said it.

And it’s in that spirit of confidence, solidarity and togetherness, that we need to go forward.

Because our guiding star is that vision of the better Britain we can build when we work together.

Let me end with this thought – because I talked at the start about how we all stand on the shoulders of political giants.

And I feel honoured that Baroness Elizabeth Smith is here tonight.

Her husband John did so much for our party to make it electable again.

John once said: ‘I am a doer and I want to do things – but there exists the terrible possibility in politics that you might never win.’

We’re all here tonight, and in politics today because we desperately want to see Labour win.

To put our principles into practice and change Scotland and Britain for the better.

John Smith never lived to see the Labour Government that he helped make possible.

But neither did Keir Hardie, when he died 100 years ago this Saturday.

He never saw where that first Labour manifesto would lead – a promise of old age pensions, votes for women, devolution of power, child benefit, and a Living Wage.

How many people must have said to him that these ambitions were not possible?

How many doubted whether those hopes for a better future would ever be realised? Let alone by a Labour Government.

We’re here tonight because we are do-ers.

Because we still believe that politics is the art of the possible.

So let’s go forward humble, but ambitious for the future.

Focused not on separation, but on what we can achieve through cooperation.

United by our passion for social justice.

Let’s rebuild our party, renew our mission, and reconnect with our country.

And if we do that, who knows what victories we’ll achieve, together, for Scotland and for Great Britain.

Thank you very much.

More from LabourList

DONATE HERE

We provide our content free, but providing daily Labour news, comment and analysis costs money. Small monthly donations from readers like you keep us going. To those already donating: thank you.

If you can afford it, can you join our supporters giving £10 a month?

And if you’re not already reading the best daily round-up of Labour news, analysis and comment…

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY EMAIL