Memo to the next Labour Leader: apologise, empower, win

Harriet Harman delivered an excellent speech today; encouraging change within the Labour Party in order for us to once again become trusted to govern.

Harriet was right to talk about the futility of labels, the scale of our rejection, and the imperative of continuing to take the fight to the government as we determine our future. Most of all, letting the ‘public in’ to the party was the most important take away message.

I have been fortunate enough – along with seemingly battalions of others – to work for Harriet. This is her second spell at Labour’s helm on an interim basis and she undertakes this role superbly: without fear or favour.

What Harriet didn’t do today – and this should be left to the victor of the Leadership contest – is apologise. Apologise to those colleagues who lost their seats, to the party workers who drove themselves into the ground, but most of all, to those people in our country who needed and wanted a Labour government. People like those in my constituency who are dealing with regular hospital operation cancellations, who can’t see their GPs, who cant get a decent job or who are trying to raise families on zero hour contracts. People like the lady in my constituency who told me that her partner took his own life because of the fear caused in him by the bedroom tax. These people deserve an apology because our self-inflicted failure has let them down. These people needed a Labour government, but the Labour Party chose to pursue self-indulgence, ducking the tough questions posed by the 2010 defeat. In truth, the party plunged itself into five years of fantasy, knowing deep down that this would result in defeat.

The reason for this is cultural. Far from losing touch with our working class roots, Labour reflects these too well. Our party – established in the century of heavy industry, and for all that this meant with regard to the social and economic organisation of society – struggles with the pace and scale of social change now unfolding around us. This has resulted in a ponderous, suffocating culture that has served us and those whom we exist to represent, poorly. Our response to change can be slow, our approach towards understanding change myopic – hallmarks of an organization that still believes that pulling political levers can actually deliver meaningful change.

The next Labour leader must exorcise this culture from the party, thereby enabling the organic, dynamic, pluralistic movement we know we should be, allowing for a vision of the country to then emerge along the same lines. Like Westminster and Whitehall are discovering, letting go of power is not a discretionary choice, it is inevitable. We ignore this at our peril.

The next Labour leader should welcome these new patterns of power, the new relationships between individuals and organisations, and shape the Labour party in their image. Political parties as monoliths are finished, over, done. It’s time to dismantle the obsolete machine and replace it with a vibrant, responsive, wide-ranging matrix. Do this, and we’ll win again.

Jamie Reed is the MP for Copeland