A co-operative future for Labour

By Gareth Thomas MP

On one level the Co-operative Party has had a good year.

Despite difficult electoral circumstances, Labour’s sister party returned 28 MPs to the House of Commons on the 6th May.

It secured important private members legislation to promote the co-operative business model and no fewer than 24 of our policy ideas were incorporated into the Labour Party manifesto for the general election.

We ran high profile campaigns including the “Feeling’s Mutual” which called for the failed banks to be returned to the mutual sector and each of the candidates for the Labour leadership has wanted to be associated with our ideas and our movement.

The early signs are that the new government – despite the rhetoric – shares little of this enthusiasm. In less than five months, they have betrayed our movement again and again. On Fair Trade, on community pubs, and more gratingly on Northern Rock.

But we need to be honest with ourselves. Despite the important achievements of the last thirteen years, we need a new approach.

I believe Labour needs a fundamental policy review to build not only on the best of its record but also to address the weaknesses in brand Labour. At times we have been portrayed as being too overbearing with the state, and too timid when addressing the excesses of the market.

We need to be at the heart of that review, championing a new mutualism, one that responds to the realities of here and now, but that is faithful to our abiding co-operative values and principles. We must ensure that it is us, not the coalition, that is leading the debate on what mutalism and co-operation can bring to our society.

We must develop new ideas to reform how government works but also how markets work. We have seen in the last few years how co-operative principles can help invigorate our public services. I am thinking in particular about Co-operative Trust Schools, and the way that involving the local community can improve a child’s education.

We must aim to make the public sector more accountable and responsive, and the private sector more ethical. Toward this end, we must champion in particular a big expansion in mutuals, whilst cherishing our building societies and friendly societies, but promoting too an expansion of access to credit unions

The brightest and best of our movement must help Labour think through its next election offer. Our ideas have much, much more potential. From what is our strongest ever starting point, with a new Labour leader, it is our role to champion a new co-operative and mutual vision for the centre-left.

Our annual in Cardiff this weekend is the ideal opportunity to start that discussion.

The challenge now is to prepare a new agenda for the next four years, working with a new Labour leader and the shadow cabinet, to build a clear, refreshed and bold alternative to the coalition.

But more importantly to articulate a compelling, bold new vision for the next stage in the co-op movement’s evolution.