Jon Trickett: How Labour is preparing for government

The Shadow Cabinet, acting on Jeremy Corbyn’s suggestion, has requested that I begin work to help prepare the party for government. This is a rigorous exercise with lots of detail, but let me outline our general approach.

No opposition party has begun this work so early in a parliament. Some may argue that it is too soon. However, we are in fact correct to start now.

Let’s recall that the Tories do not have a majority – they are relying on the votes of the DUP and tearing themselves apart over Brexit. It’s not at all clear that May’s government can last the normal five years that is meant to pass between elections.

For this reason, Labour needs to be ready for whenever the next election takes place to deliver a Labour majority. But there is another, more important reason to begin preparations for office.

The country is on the wrong track entirely. Labour proposes to break with a stagnant status quo. We will transform the way in which our economy and our politics work, from top to bottom. This is the meaning of our 2017 Labour election manifesto, which committed us to governing for the many and not simply the few.

If we are to bring about a transformative agenda in government, it is essential that we show clearly – with authority and credibility – precisely how we attempt to set about this process. We have to make our ambitions plausible. After all, some people have argued that right-wing thinking has become so ingrained that it is easier for people to imagine a climate change cataclysm across the planet than it is to imagine the end of austerity and elitism.

Labour’s task, therefore, is to show not just that we have the ideas and energy to imagine another Britain, but that we have the conviction and competence to make it a reality.

Take child poverty. Who could argue that the existence of hundreds of thousands of children living in poverty is acceptable in the 21st century? Or that we would see the explosion in the use of food banks? And yet somehow Britain has been forced to endure this abomination, which is an affront to the values of the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens. We are told that this is what it means to ‘all do our bit’.

The Child Poverty Action Group estimates there are over four million children living in poverty in the UK. In my home county, Yorkshire, there are 250,000 children in poverty. And only this week the equality and human rights commission has said austerity will plunge a further 1.5 million children into poverty by 2021.

Of course there are a number of actions we will take throughout our term in office to tackle these unacceptable levels of inequality. But Labour can and will take immediate steps to address child poverty as soon as we enter office.

You may have come across many of these throughout the election campaign. If we were in government we would:

• Provide a free school meal for every child up to the age of 11, paid for by a tax on fee-paying schools;
• Introduce a statutory living wage of £10 per hour;
• Instate a policy of sectoral pay bargaining and remove the wholly unacceptable burdens on trade unions;
• End the public sector pay cap;
• Put an end to the age of austerity.

All of the above will need to be financed. Voters will wish to know that we will not recklessly increase the deficit. This is why our plan for governing will also include a detailed set of proposals as to how we will pay for any new promises we have made since the 2017 election.

In 2017, we published the “grey book” in which showed how we will pay for every single promise we made. There have been billions of pounds worth of tax handouts that the Conservatives have given to big corporations and wealthy individuals, which have simply made them wealthier without any significant spin off for the rest of us.

The grey book shows that clawing back some of these billions will significantly contribute towards the funding of our programme. But we would go further and take steps to end the scandal of aggressive tax avoidance schemes which cost the country huge amounts of money which would be better spent, for example, on the NHS or on poverty alleviation. Preparing for government means being ready to implement these in 2018, 2019, or whenever the next election is.

It is my job, together with all my frontbench colleagues, to prepare ourselves for office. We’ll do this in accordance with Labour’s values, in an open and democratic manner. But, equally, we will be credible and authoritative.

If you are a party member already, please step up your activism and engagement so that whenever the election comes we are able to win. If you have not yet made that leap, then why not join reportedly the biggest left-wing political party in Europe? You know that our values are also yours. Help us make our country a place which works for the many and not simply the few.

We will be a government of which every one of us will be proud.

Jon Trickett is shadow minister for the cabinet office and MP for Hemsworth.

Twitter: @jon_trickett | Facebook: jon.trickett

This piece was commissioned by guest editor Diane Abbott.