Every volunteer, every leaflet, every conversation brings us closer to No 10

By the time we got to polling day in the local elections earlier this year, Labour activists had notched up two million conversations with voters – the highest number ever outside of a general election year. Nobody underestimates how important our Labour members are. The work they do – whether talking to voters or delivering leaflets – is the foundation of our success.

Members made the difference in the Batley and Spen, Erdington and Wakefield by-elections and we exceeded expectations in every one of those contests as a result. We also exceeded expectations at May’s local elections by winning in every part of the country. If those results were replicated at a general election we would be winning in many of our battlegrounds. We would be the largest party in parliament.

As great as that is, it’s not good enough. We want a majority Labour government; Britain needs a majority Labour government and for that we need a landslide. The polls have been very kind to us in recent weeks and it’s good to see such large leads – but beware of pollsters bearing gifts. In the weeks before the 1997 general election, Tony Blair warned that he was the “eternal warrior against complacency” and wanted everyone focused on seeing the job through. We cannot afford to be complacent. It was true then and it is true now. We haven’t won anything yet. And we won’t win without a lot of hard work.

The coronation of Rishi Sunak, as our third Prime Minister of the autumn, has tempered the polls. But while he may be the new Prime Minister, he is also the old Chancellor. He was not the Chancellor of economic credibility, he was the Chancellor who failed – using a bank card, filling a car with petrol or setting out his last Budget, and he is the one who spectacularly failed to meet the challenge of a cost-of-living crisis facing millions of working people. He was asleep at the wheel when inflation started to rise and announced a windfall tax that was so full of loopholes it raised a fraction of what was possible.

No matter what the polls say, we will not beat the Tories and deliver the Labour government Britain needs without hard work. My job as national campaign coordinator is to maintain the high standards and activity set by members. We have been fine tuning the party machine – introducing a series of innovations to make us more voter focused, data-led and much more agile. That is paying off, but there’s more to do.

That’s why events such as last week’s national campaign weekend are so important. Every volunteer, every leaflet, every conversation brings us closer to Downing Street. It is a major part of how we will get there. While we have been equipping the party with the tools to win the next general election – a new army of trainee organisers, enhanced and innovative digital campaigning adapted from the best practice from around the world – we haven’t forgotten our members.

The thousands of members out on the doorsteps at the weekend will have noticed a significant change to how we’re doing things – our new doorstep script. Its focus is on listening to voters. It has been tried and tested in by-elections and is designed to ensure that each one of those millions of interactions we have leaves voters with the best possible impression of the party, and gives us the most useful information to win elections.

We want voters to know we care about the things that matter most to them. We want to involve them in our campaigns and we want to leave them knowing what their local Labour party is offering. The new script makes an incredible difference and I would urge all CLPs to make sure they’re using it. More information about it is available here.

The autumn weather changes quicker than the residents of Downing Street – but that didn’t deter a greater than usual response from activists and Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) last weekend. An overwhelming majority of CLPs ordered campaign materials and we saw activity across every part of the country and in every kind of seat – including in all our battleground seats. And in those seats we deployed our shadow cabinet to help mobilise activists.

We held tens of thousands of conversations with voters over the two days, making good use of the new script. This is what we will need to do if we want the Labour landslide Britain needs. We must have these conversations, we must listen to voters and we must take the fight to the Tories – street by street – to get Keir Starmer into No 10 and Labour into government.