Usdaw boss: Owen Smith offers the best opportunity to unite the Labour Party and lead us back to power

The Labour Party was created by the trade unions to provide working people with representation in Parliament and seek power by winning elections. That cause is as important today and in the future as it was over 100 years ago.

For that reason the executive council of the shopworkers’ trade union has decided to nominate Owen Smith in the election for leader of the Labour Party. Owen Smith would be a radical and credible leader, who offers the best opportunity to unite the Labour Party and lead us into government at the next general election.

Workers’ rights, pay and standards of living continue to be at risk under a Conservative Government that is taking us out of the EU; so it is crucial that Labour wins the next general election. Our members cannot afford years of principled opposition, with a Labour Party divided and unable to secure the confidence of voters. We need Labour in government to improve workers lives and protect them from the dangers of being out of the EU and under the rule of a Conservative Government.

Low paid workers incomes are the top priority for Usdaw and Owen Smith has a proven track record of standing up to Tory attacks and a plan to make a real difference in the future. He worked alongside Usdaw to successfully oppose the punitive tax credit cuts that would have so severely cut many of our members’ incomes and plunged working families into poverty.

We share Owen’s support for the principle of universal credit, but welcome his attack on Government cuts to its budget and fear the way it is being introduced will penalise working people. It is crucial for our members that the Labour Party puts up a robust defence on income cuts to low paid workers, but absolutely vital that Labour gets back into Government to initiate policies that will lift working families and their children out of poverty.

That is the key for our members. Simply winning occasional defeats against a Conservative government isn’t enough, we have to be in government delivering for our members and improving workers lives.

Owen is putting forward a great programme of policies that will make a difference to our members: Tackling low pay in the retail sector by introducing a real living wage; strengthening workers’ rights and union rights; ending austerity, whilst planning for prosperity with a British New Deal of £200bn of investment; saving the NHS by increasing spending by 4 per cent a year; tackling the Tory housing crisis by building 300,000 homes every year.

I am sure that some will argue that Jeremy Corbyn is putting forward a similar agenda. It is true that in the Labour Party there is more that unites us than divides us,. But great ideas have little value if they never leave the pages of a manifesto to be enacted by a Labour government.

We cannot underestimate the scale of the challenge that faces us. Even before boundary changes, we need a much bigger swing than we achieved in 1997 to get a majority of just one!

Being able to fill mass meetings and rallies with like-minded people is fine, but we need to be very careful not to fall into the trap of thinking those events can persuade people who have not voted Labour recently to switch. So that means not just talking to ourselves, but reaching out. Our support needs to be measured in millions not a few hundred thousand.

Last year party members took a punt on a different style of leader. He has changed the Party; making us more firmly anti-austerity and hugely building our movement.

But it is clear that Jeremy has struggled to convince the people that we need to vote for us at the next election, and it is clear he is not the best person to lead us going forward. At a time when the Conservatives were pulling themselves apart over Europe, we only “held on” in local elections. Now the Tories are more united than they have been for many years we need a radical, credible leader to unite Labour, provide a strong effective opposition and win the next election. With all due respect to Jeremy, all the evidence suggests to me that only Owen Smith can achieve all of those aims.

Our members – more than most – need a Labour Government. To protect our NHS, to tackle the housing crisis, and to build an economy that works for all. That’s why we’re backing Owen Smith.

John Hannett is general secretary of Usdaw.