No short-cut to unity of purpose

This defeat has been hard to take. Hard on our members, hard on the Labour Party and most importantly it will mean hard times for Britain. As the debate begins to move on there are a small number of Ed’s legacies we must not lose sight of. A united party, courage in the face of pressure, and crucially reforming the historic link between trade unions and the Labour Party.

With Tories already setting out restrictions on trade unions and attacks on human rights, and a certainty that it will get worse over the next five years, it is crucial that the link stays as strong as ever. There should be no dissent over funding, seats or leadership elections. We should work together, stronger than ever to protect the most vulnerable in society from what is about to come their way. The country needs us to rebuild a mass movement.

This doesn’t mean scaling back on our opposition whilst the leadership election is going on. We must still provide a challenge to the regressive policies that the Tories will hope to fast track while they suspect we are busy with other things. Harriet, her team and all the newly elected MPs can and should provide an effective and direct opposition. Being in opposition could not be more crucial than when the government has such a small majority and a large number of discontented backbenchers. The Shadow Cabinet should relish the opportunity to do its job with renewed vigour so that the party can conduct its reformation openly, and without fear of losing ground as we did in 2010.

We have an opportunity now to reinforce the link and put Ed’s reforms into practice. For the true essence of the Collins review to become reality we need a long leadership campaign so that we can give as many of our members as possible the opportunity to have a voice.

A reversal on the Collins reforms is untenable and opens the Labour Party up to further attacks from the media and the Conservatives about the way we do our politics. Essentially, the process must be party owned and validated. Building on Ed’s reforms in a transparent and inclusive way is the only way forward to help the Labour Party back into Government in 2020.

But this goes beyond process, strong partnerships between trade unions and the Labour Party at a local level are not only valuable but vital to protect members, increase participation and build Party organisation. We need individual trade union members to play more active roles in the Labour Party, and we need Labour Party campaigners in our workplaces to promote the values of fairness and justice at a time when they will be needed more than ever.

It is clear that we are at our best when we work together. Ed Miliband put us on the right path and we cannot call for new ways of doing politics if we are not prepared to change the way we do politics ourselves. Losing the general election does not need to be the cause of a civil war, we can emerge from this debate reinvigorated, well equipped and united behind our new leader, ready to return a Labour government.

John Park is Assistant General Secretary at Community