Your movement – Labour 2010

By Ellie Gellard / @BevaniteEllie

Gordon Brown walked into a packed hall, full of his cabinet ministers, to Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher” and kicked off a campaign, the end of which will see the country choose its future. The election will be fought with our record in mind, but with our vision for the future firmly at the fore. As Douglas Alexander said, the election is not about a choice between more of the same and change, as the Tories would like you to believe. It is between two competing visions of the future.

What I found most interesting in the speech was Labour’s emphasis on the grassroots, the focus on our Labour movement bringing about an election victory. This is not going to be the old top-down Labour Party way, centrally controlled with little room for manoeuvre. The Party is putting its faith in its members. The election, Brown said, is:

“going to be won street by street, school-gate by school-gate, workplace by workplace – it’s going to be won by you.”

Difficulties in recent months have ensured that the team of Labour activists we have, though possibly smaller than we would like, is one with the loyalty, determination and fight to win an election. Learning the lessons from Obama, Labour have realised that the most powerful weapon we have at our disposal is our members. Members who pound the streets, not just for candidates, but for causes. While Cameron has the cash, we have seen in recent weeks that with creativity and ingenuity, the left can flip the Tories’ good fortune to bad, as Gordon remarked:

“those airbrushed posters – the greatest money Labour never spent”.

As we look to fight the election at the grassroots, Gordon also asked the British public, directly, to look at Labour again.

“I know that Labour hasn’t done everything right. And I know – really, I know – that I’m not perfect…But take a second look at us…and take a long hard look at them.”

This was my favourite line of the speech. Gordon and the party are not Perfect, but he challenged the public to face up to the choice in front of them. Yes, the Labour Party will work to put forward a manifesto which will fight for the many, not the few, but be clear about the choice we face. It is between change in a damaged political system which will seek fairer representation for all, and a Party who claims to have changed, when in fact their core is as rotten and their values as retrograde as ever. While the media may not be inviting us to look at Labour again, and scrutinise the Opposition, Gordon did, and I hope we listen.

Finally, there was an appeal to the broader left. He asked those who would consider themselves “progressives” to come home. I have seen, via Twitter, a recent wave of people from the left coming back to the Labour Party, and nothing has made me happier. A General Election is a little like Christmas: the family put aside any differences we may have and reunite. Yes, there may be the odd fall out, and of course more than the odd difference of opinion, but we understand that this is a time of huge importance.

Come May, it is a two horse race, those on the Left who see the threat of a Tory governemnt must now choose a side, get on board and fight. Those who depend on progressive governments, those who depend on governments which recognise the challenge of climate change and don’t accept unemployment as a price worth paying in a recession or the destruction of front-ine services which have been built up over the past 13 years as “necessary”, need to get together, on one side under our Labour umbrella and reverse what many see as an “inevitable” Tory victory. Nothing in politics must be inevitable.

I’m hugely looking forward to “Operation Fightback“. With a focus on members combining the internet and the doorstep, Gordon Brown reminds us that we have built a movement which requires relatively little cash, but instead members rich with energy and determination. We have that, and when used effectively, its power is unstoppable. Combined with a coalition of those who share our values and a public looking at what the Opposition has to offer, we may, just, do it.