Why I’m backing David Miliband for leader

By Douglas Alexander MP / @DAlexanderMP

David Miliband is proving the grassroots’ choice. After completing my work as General Election Coordinator the easiest course for me this summer would have been to take a rest from organising campaigns. I won’t be releasing a memoir but it’s safe to say that the general election campaign, like for many thousands of members across the country, involved long hours and much work.

But instead I decided to throw myself into the leadership election – agreeing to become Co-Chair of David Miliband’s campaign. I’ve known him as a friend and colleague for more than 20 years. My judgement was that David has good Labour values, can unite our Party and can lead us back to power at the next election.

The course of this campaign has affirmed my view. David’s policy commitments, from a high pay commission to a living wage, have been matched with a demonstration of his determination to change the way we do politics. He wants Labour to be a movement rather than a machine and he’s turning those words into action by training 1000 people in the skills of community organising during the campaign. Jon Cruddas said of his recent Keir Hardie speech that it was “the most important by a Labour politician for many years”.

In the days following the election I spoke to good friends who had lost their seats as Labour MPs on May 6th. They told me they thought David was best placed to win these seats back. A YouGov poll released earlier this week gave is the latest evidence that he is the candidate with the most support amongst the public, and is the candidate they judge as most likely to win a general election. Business leaders also judged him the “candidate most likely to threaten the coalition”.

And more and more Party members have come to see the David I’ve known for years. David has travelled across the country over the past few months – speaking with thousands of party members at over 150 events. And with just a few days to go David has a convincing lead over all other candidates in supporting nominations from CLPs.

So why is this happening? In CLP after CLP across the country party members are going out to support David to send the simple message – “we want to win again”. They seem determined to prove that while we lost on May 6th, as a political party we’re not beaten.

If we’re honest with ourselves, this is not the Labour Party’s usual response to defeat. Circular firing squads have been the more usual order of the day. After defeats in the past we’ve tended to take decisions which have seen us turn in on ourselves or retreat into the comfortable familiarity and purity of opposition. As a result, it has in the past meant that Labour has been out of power for an average of 10.5 years after defeat.

In William Hague, the Tories picked a leader after their defeat in 1997 who did little else than appease their core vote – leading to a second landslide defeat for the party and a total of 13 years before they would return to Government. That came to my mind recently when a Tory MP told me “it took us three goes to get a leader we needed rather than just one we wanted”.

This time round we are showing that we want to buck this trend. As a party we’re not giving up and we’re not giving in. This is the same spirit I saw from party members across the country as General Election Coordinator – fighting and refusing to give up despite the odds stacked against them – and enabling us to hold on to some of our most marginal seats despite the national swing against us. This instinct I think comes from the knowledge and understanding that the people who need us most need our victory – when we lose, they lose.

As the recent decisions of the coalition – from the cancellation of the BSF programme to their regressive budget – have reminded us, Britain needs a strong Labour Party now. And a strong Labour Party needs a strong Leader.