‘We win when we fight together – that’s the story Labour needs to tell’

Alison McGovern is one of the candidates standing to be deputy leader of the Labour Party. LabourList has approached all candidates for their pitch.

At Reform UK’s conference last weekend, Nigel Farage painted our country as divided, cynical and peppered with hate.

I know that people are struggling right now and feel fed up, but I refuse to accept his view of the world and this country. I know, from my home in Birkenhead, on the terraces at Anfield, and on doorsteps across the country, that this is just not who we are.

The love we have for each other is there, if you look. When there was an explosion on a high street in my constituency in 2017, the workers at a local factory brought boxes of supplies to help people made homeless. And then we fought together to get homes rebuilt, even getting some new social housing.

I want to be Labour’s next Deputy Leader because our national story needs to be that story – a Britain much bigger than Farage’s hate. We are in a unique position as a party.  We only exist because our founders decided that if people from different backgrounds and interests came together and fought for the things they had in common, they would win.  That is what we need to do now.

People in Britain need to feel part of something.  They need better homes, better jobs, and to feel proud of their country, a diverse, modern, open country that offers chances and choices to all.  We all have this in common, and we can fight for it together.

The risk is great if we fail. I’m worried about the rise of the far right. We have communities in this country where people have felt divided and fearful in recent times, and I don’t want that to go on any longer. We have to take this challenge on.

We have to make sure that everyone in the UK feels the benefit of our economy – whether that is in a better job, or in no longer seeing kids in their town growing up poor.  Get the basics right.  No more derelict high streets, no more forgotten people. Help people feel the change they voted for.

And put hope back into our politics – not ducking the responsibility of government – even when it’s difficult – but unashamedly fighting for our values and our country.  Whether it’s more money for better public services, workers’ rights or the environment, Labour has a good story to tell – so we have to tell it. I have spent the last year changing job centres so they better serve the most vulnerable in our society, and I know that the good work this government is doing often goes under the radar.

We have been far from perfect, of course there are things I would like to change. There are lessons to learned from our first year in government, but the role of the Deputy Leader is to be a campaigner and a team player, not a backseat driver to other ministers in government. I want the strongest possible child poverty strategy, I want the strongest possible plan for homes, I want our government to fight every day for working people.

Labour needs a deputy leader who isn’t afraid to be honest, including with the Prime Minister, but who understands that loyalty and unity are fundamental ingredients in winning election campaigns. Our party is always debating about future policy, and rightly so. But I am worried about turning this contest into a binary referendum on our first year in office which doesn’t address the complexity of what we need to do differently in order to make good on the promise of change we made at the last election.

We can never be cowed by hate. We can never give in to the forces that would divide us and send us backwards.  The answer is the Labour winning over a broad coalition for our future: everyone in our country that knows that people are more alike than they are different, and that when we fight together, we win.

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