“Let us face the future” – Angela Eagle’s speech to the National policy Forum

The National Policy Forum(NPF) meets this weekend in Milton keynes – here’s NPF Chair Angela Eagle’s opening speech, in which she invokes the spirit of 1945:

It is a great honour to open this meeting of the National Policy Forum at such a crucial moment for our Party and for our country.

But first before I look forward to the weekend I want to look back.

When I was elected Chair of Labour’s NEC nearly a year ago, I took a moment to reflect on some of the women who chaired it before me.

Remarkable women like Margaret Herbison, Edith Summerskill, Alice Bacon, Jennie Lee, Judith Hart, Joan Lestor and my personal inspiration Barbara Castle.

But there is one particular woman in my mind as I stand before you today.

The indefatigable ‘Red Ellen’, Ellen Wilkinson MP for Jarrow: one of Labour’s first women MPs.

At just under five foot tall she was known as the mighty atom and she was the founding member of ‘little labour’ of which I am such a proud member today.

Ellen was a suffragist.

She was a trade unionist, the first women’s officer for the Amalgamated union of Co-op workers, a precursor to USDAW

And she was the unsung hero of many of our defining moments in the Party.

When she became Chair of the NEC in 1945, the National Policy Forum hadn’t been invented. We had a policy sub committee of the NEC instead and Ellen was a key figure.

She co-authored Labour’s 1945 manifesto.

A manifesto that in five words captured the spirit of the nation.

Let us face the future.

A manifesto that in times of great economic hardship, dared to envisage radical and transformative reform.

We won that election in 1945 with a majority of 146 seats and when Ellen Wilkinson heard Labour had won the seat of Chislehurst in Kent, she exclaimed ‘my God, the revolution really has arrived’.

I think we can learn a lot from the spirit of 1945, although our context is now very different.

Just look at the simple ambitions of that manifesto. Decent housing. High quality health and education services. Jobs for all. The banishing of want and poverty.

Ambitions which resonate now more than ever.

In our country today.

In the last year. 

Nearly a million people had to turn to food banks to feed their families.

Wages are stagnant.

We lack affordable homes.

The most vulnerable are being hit the hardest.

And the Attlee Government’s crowning achievement – the NHS – is now under serious threat.

In 2014 for the first time since 1945 people are worried that their children will do worse than them, not better.

It is as our leader Ed Miliband has said.

The basic deal at the heart of British society has broken down.

A deal forged in the pages of that ‘45 manifesto.

That fair work should receive fair reward.

That everyone should be given a decent chance in life.

That everyone should have the power to change their lives for the better.

But there is another lesson too.

That in the Labour Party we must translate our timeless values in to the context we find ourselves in.

That we must face the future not be stuck in the past.

And that context today brings its own unique challenges.

Our economic situation means that after the next election there isn’t going to be more money around, there will be less.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t be the torchbearers of the values and ambition that defines the history of our Party.

Just look at the ideas that we’ve brought together in this policy process so far.

Making our labour market fairer by raising the minimum wage and tackling exploitative zero hour contracts.

Three year tenancies and predictable rents to stop exploitative private landlords preying on powerless tenants

Freezing energy bills until 2017 and reforming the failing market.

The message from this weekend must ring out loud and clear.

The next Labour Government will deliver social justice through big reform, but not big spending.

In 1945 our nation had been united by the horrors of war.

It was a moment when people believed that we can achieve more by the strength of our common endeavour than we can do alone.

But today that spirit has broken down.

When Margaret Thatcher came to power her priority was the ‘I’ above the ‘we’.

The reach of the markets extended in to the heart of our communities.

And our politics became commercialised too.
People today regard political policies as if they were just a brand in the supermarket.

Too often they feel like passive consumers buying a product, not active participants empowered to help realise the possibilities of progressive political change.
This government is attempting to dismantle 60 years of social progress in one five year term.

People are struggling but they see a Government washing it’s hands of any responsibility to help them.

It is no wonder that democratic participation continues to decline.

That we have a crisis of trust in all our major institutions.

People are hurting but no longer believe in the power of politics to change their lives.

To face the future we have to rekindle the hope that we can rebuild a better Britain.

We have to inspire people to believe that things can change for the better but only with Labours’ values.

We have to change how we do politics.

And that is why I am so proud of the policy process we have built together.

This isn’t going to be a manifesto from the centre, built on the command and control politics of the past.

It is going to be a manifesto built from the grassroots up.

Since we launched Your Britain over 200,000 people have engaged with us.

Over 1300 hundred amendments have been submitted for our consideration.

And you have all spent the last four years in your communities, around the country, listening to what people have to say.

I think we should all be proud of what we have achieved together.

But of course it all builds up to the moment before us now.

Over the next three days you have the crucial responsibility of agreeing our policy platform and our offer to the British public.

And the only thing I ask of you is this: remember the spirit of ‘45. Let us face the future.

A radical manifesto which transforms our society.

A radical politics which invites people in and doesn’t shut them out.

An iron financial discipline which recognises that we don’t need to spend more to build the Britain we want to see.

And if we succeed then I believe we will build a manifesto worthy of Ellen Wilkinson.

A new settlement for our country.

Where everyone has a chance.

So colleagues, let’s have a good weekend.

Let’s use our new deliberative sessions to get to the heart of the issues.

Let’s air our differences in the comradely spirit that defines our Party at its best.

And then let’s go to the country and in the words of Ellen Wilkinson “Fight, fight clean, fight hard, and come back with a solid majority for a Labour Government”.