“It is here that the human spirit becomes perfect.”

So said Alexis de Tocqueville, about Manchester.  And at the end of this month, the Labour Party returns to that great city.

Among many of the topics, causes and ideas being discussed at this year’s Conference will be how the Party renourishes its grassroots movement; essentially, how we organise.

So it’s fitting that we come to Manchester. MCR is a Labour heartland. It has some of our best and brightest MPs, some of our most exciting, enthusiastic Councillors and some of our most dedicated activists. It is also the scene of some of the best demonstrations of the power of people organising.

In 1894, Coca-Cola was first sold in bottles, Manchester City FC was founded and Blackpool Tower opened. That same year, Pierre de Coubertin formed the International Olympic Committee. And in 1894, just three MPs represented the Independent Labour Party. But that year also saw the culmination of years of people organising in Manchester to achieve something truly progressive.

On the first day of 1894, the first traffic sailed down the Manchester Ship Canal. And 5 months later, Queen Victoria was in town to perform the official opening.

By 1915, the Ship Canal was handling nearly 5.5m tonnes of cargo – already half as much as the much older, well-established Cardiff Docks which was exporting over 10m tonnes of coal around the same time. The Ship Canal peaked in 1958 when it carried some 20m tonnes of freight. It enabled Manchester to be one of the hotbeds of the Industrial Revolution and contributed massively to Britain’s astronomical growth.

But the Ship Canal wasn’t the work of the wealthy elite, powerful land barons or respected MPs. Not them alone, anyway.

The Ship Canal is a testament to the power of people organising. In the late 1800’s, Manchester’s workers and businessmen got angry. The nearest port in Liverpool began charging extortionate dues and rail transport from there was too expensive. All this, against the backdrop of an economic downturn that was beginning to bite hard. They got angry. And then they got organised.

In 1882, the idea of building a ship canal into Manchester was developed. It brought a broad cross-section of Manchester together: manufacturers, engineers, businessmen, politicians, local representatives and workers. Meetings began taking place across the city to discuss the plan. Newspapers, leaflets and reports in the local press spread the word. People couldn’t retweet – but they did join the organising effort; setting up meetings, taking actions and adding their power to the growing movement. This gave the politicians the backing they needed to go to the Commons, and in 1885 the Act of Parliament was given royal ascent. That wasn’t it though. The developers were challenged to issue the required money within 2 years, and unlike modern-day Manchester’s rising powers, they could not enlist the financial assistance of wealthy men from the East. So instead, they organised their money too. Shares were sold to the working population and payments structured so that the working men and women of Manchester could manage the outlay. And late in 1887, work began on the Manchester Ship Canal.

Our history is littered with examples of people not accepting their lot, not merely bemoaning their luck, but taking action. Reverend Jesse Jackson once said, “Don’t cry ‘bout whatcha don’t have, use whatcha got,” and the story of the Ship Canal perfectly illustrates the possibilities if we follow that rule.

It’s this proud history of organising that must inspire us now. Labour has rallied in the polls, yet the election is some way off. The urgency of now is to use the window of time we have to get organised – in our communities, on issues that really matter, and as a Party. We all joined the Labour Party because we know it’s the best place to change our country and our world. But we can do it better, building our power and taking action.

We can do it like activists in Streatham, where the issue of women’s safety has motivated the community to build a force to combat the insecurity that women face at night. Or like activists in Greenwich, where members have begun speaking to local residents about the pinch on living standards, asking them not only what could make life easier but also if they will join us to take action.

Or we can do it like people have been up and down the country to take action against the shocking growth of legal loansharks during a recession made in Downing Street.

If we get organised across the country, like the people of Manchester did all those years ago, we can keep making the changes that matter to people’s lives even whilst we’re out of power nationally. We can show people that Labour is the party that will fight alongside them to help us build our next majority. And we can reforge the relationship between the people and our Party when we return to government.

Edward Abbott Parry, in his play What The Judge Saw, wrote “’Don’t talk about what you are going to do, do it.’ That is the Manchester habit.” Let’s take that Mancunian habit away from this Conference and “do it” all over the country.