Ed Miliband address to Labour Party conference in full

Thank you, friends. 

And let’s hear it for Tracey and her brilliant speech. 

And let me say something about my friend Keir Starmer, our leader and Prime Minister,

Believe me, I know what pressure you face in giving the leaders’ speech at Labour Conference.

Yesterday, he gave an absolute barnstormer. Let’s raise the roof for Keir and the brilliant speech he gave.

Friends, I know this party…and I love this party.

You know my Dad spoke at Conference as a delegate…at the 1955 conference held in Margate, 70 years ago.

I looked back recently at his speech: in 2 minutes, he attacked the national executive committee, he complained about the composite he was being expected to support, and called for the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy.

It’s good some things never change in the Labour Party. 

But he said something in that speech that has always had special meaning for me: he said being part of this party was a great adventure: and we had a vision the Tories will never have.

A great adventure.

For me, for us, for our party, that is the point of being in politics.

To go out, argue for and make real your vision of the country and have it change people’s lives for the better.

Not just to be different faces managing the government but governing with totally different ideals and vision.        

That’s what I want to talk to you about today.

But first as you head home and we end this Conference, you should take with you the ways we are starting to change Britain.

Just take pride what we already have done in energy.

Ten thousand new jobs at Sizewell C

Investing in Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactors, 

Funding for carbon capture and storage in all corners of Britain

The biggest investment in clean energy in British history.

The onshore wind ban lifted

Enough solar to power 2 million homes

Ending the scandal of the Mineworkers Pension Scheme

Solar panels on 200 hospitals and 200 schools to cut their energy bills.

Britain leading the world again in the fight against the climate crisis

and yes, the first publicly owned energy company in 70 years, Great British Energy

But this must only be the start of the change we bring to Britain.

Because our country is so far from the vision we have and people are impatient for change.

And they’re not wrong, they’re right —- that our country needs to be run very differently. 

Now we know what Reform’s approach is:

Scapegoat anyone or anything they can pretend is the cause of all our problems: 

They want to blame diversity, net zero, anything they can find to stir up division.

They’re wrong, they’re dead wrong about the causes of our country’s problems.

About why our living standards have stagnated.  About why our public services have declined.

It’s two dominant right wing, Tory ideas that have devastated Britain over the last few decades.

The first idea, from the 1980s, trickle down economics, that by enriching those at the top, everyone else would feel the benefits.

But we all know how that worked out. 

All it did was bring the deep inequality that still scars us to this day.

It didn’t work

It won’t work

It can never work.

The second idea, from the 2010s

Austerity: that if government got out of the way and cut, cut and cut again, it would sort out our economic problems. 

We all know that was a disaster too. 

Decimating the services across Britain that working people rely on.

That’s the real issue: for almost 30 of the last 40 years, we have had governments that have transferred wealth, power and income away from working class communities. 

Not through an accidental series of mishaps, but a deliberate act to benefit the wealthiest in our society.

Remember what it says on our party card.

It says we stand for “a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few …”

But that feels like an absolute fantasy, a distant dream for so many millions of people.

That’s why so many people feel Britain doesn’t work for them.

That is what we must change.

That is the mission of this Labour government.

Now what’s so important about clean energy is that it can answer that call for a different kind of economy…run for working people.

It offers the biggest opportunity for job creation for decades.

Skilled jobs in proud professions.

Tens of thousands more jobs for engineers, 

for welders, 

for electricians, 

for construction workers.

And behind these statistics is the potential for each and every one of these jobs to change the lives of working people and their communities.

Recently, I spoke to an apprentice working at Sizewell C.

He was so excited about what he was doing, the prospect of a good job, without leaving his home town, doing the right thing for the future of the planet too.

Just think about what that will do for his life chances and thousands of others.

And now think about the potential job by job, city by city, town by town.

Your town, your city.

From offshore wind in the East of England to carbon capture and storage in the North East and here in the North West.

Hydrogen in Yorkshire to new nuclear in Wales.

Critical minerals in Cornwall to Nuclear fusion in the Midlands, and backing existing industries like ceramics.

And in Scotland, oil and gas workers who have powered our country and our world will continue to be a valued part of our energy workforce. We will create new jobs in hydrogen, offshore wind, and carbon capture and storage.

And if you want to know the difference a Labour government makes, the Acorn carbon capture and storage project was talked about for years by the SNP and Tories but never delivered.

Now it is being made real by this Labour government. 

And friends, think how many thousands more jobs we could create if we had a Scottish Government that embraced and didn’t block nuclear power- one of the many reasons we need to kick out the SNP and elect Anas Sarwar as the First Minister of Scotland.

And these new jobs must be a model for the kind of fairer economy we believe in.

For too long trade unions have been locked out of new energy industries, because they came of age when Tory dogma said unions were a dirty word.

No more.

Not on my watch.

Our Clean Industry bonus rewards the offshore wind industry for investing in Britain – but under a Labour government, public money must serve the public interest.

So that is why I can announce that we will introduce a new Fair Work Charter as a condition of that bonus – fair wages, the very best rights at work, access to unions.

My message is very simple: Under this Labour government, fairness at work: not a privilege for some but a right for all. 

And let me pay tribute to my friend Angela Rayner, for her new deal for working people, that we will implement in full.

And our commitment means stamping out exploitation wherever we find it.

Current rules mean that if you work offshore in renewables, more than 12 miles out at sea, you are literally in no man’s land when it comes to employment protection.

Not even guaranteed the minimum wage.

It is a scandal

It is a Tory scandal.

And today I say we will end it.

Our principle which we will put in law – offshore, onshore, land or sea: you will be guaranteed fair pay and decent rights at work.

And clean energy offers our best chance to escape the high energy bills that have caused the cost of living crisis.

Today, bills remain high because wholesale gas prices are still 75% higher than before Russia invaded Ukraine. 

We’re at the mercy of the petrostates and dictators.

And the only way out of it is our mission for clean power by 2030.

And as we put up the solar panels and wind turbines, build the nuclear power and the grid, in the meantime, we are determined to do everything we can to help working people.

So this winter, because of the decisions of this government to extend the Warm Home Discount almost 3 million more families on the lowest incomes will get £150 off their energy bills.

We will not rest until we tackle the scourge of fuel poverty.

For years, landlords have got away with renting out substandard, damp accommodation with no rights for renters.

No more.

Not on my watch.

And so in our Warm Homes Plan we will end this scandal.

Hundreds of thousands lifted out of fuel poverty

Millions of families helped

That’s what ending the Tory legacy of cold, damp homes looks like.

And friends this is just the start.

Insulation, solar power, batteries – for lower bills to help tackle the cost of living crisis.

House by house, street by street working with Labour local authorities.

Helping millions up and down the country.

A plan to ensure that by switching to clean energy, you will be better off.

And we have only just begun when it comes to the work of Great British Energy.

Don’t let them tell you public ownership makes no difference.

I’ll tell you exactly the difference it makes. 

Building on our success, Great British Energy will go even further in cutting energy bills for frontline services:

On top of the 200 already planned, I can announce 45 more schools will get rooftop solar this year.

On the top of the 200 already in the works, over 50 more NHS sites.

And for the first time, our publicly owned energy company will work with the Ministry of Defence so those who serve in our military get the benefit of lower energy bills too.

Great British Energy–owned by the British people, supported by the British people, delivering for the British people.

All in the service of our vision: bringing wealth and power back to working people and their families.

That is the mission of this Labour government.

But we face a fight like never before.

Reform would wreck everything we are doing.

They’ve said they would “wage war” on clean energy.

A culture war they are importing from the United States, driven by the rich and powerful interests who fund them  

Let’s spell out what Reform’s war means:

It’s a war on the workers at the Siemens wind turbine factory in Hull

It’s a war on the construction workers building carbon capture and storage in Teesside

It’s a war on the workers at the new cable factory in Scotland

And a war on the working people of Britain.

And let’s call it out: 

Theirs is an all out war on future generations too.

I’m proud of British climate leadership.

I’m proud of Labour climate leadership.

And I say: Reform’s war on the future would betray every young person in our country and every person yet to be born.

And don’t let Reform tell you Britain can’t make a difference in the world.

We will never accept Reform’s shrivelled, unpatriotic and diminished view of our country.

Ours is a vision of Britain standing tall on the world stage.

Fighting for the national interest and true to our traditions of internationalism.

And let me just say: I am so proud to be part of a government that has officially recognised a Palestinian state.

And let’s call out Farage and his cronies for who they are:

The:

Investment crushing, 

Job destroying,

Bill raising, 

Poverty driving, 

Science denying 

Putin appeasing 

Young people betraying, 

Bunch of ideological extremists.

And we know where they want to go next because they have told us.

Fracking.

Fracking will not take a penny off bills.

It will not create long-term sustainable jobs

It will trash our climate commitments

And it is dangerous and deeply harmful to our natural environment. 

The good news is that communities have fought back and won this fight before and will do so again.

Remember Liz Truss and her 42 days of disaster.

The Tories tried to overturn the fracking ban. 

Led by Jacob Rees-Mogg —remember him?

Friends, we sent those frackers packing.

I say:

Let’s vow to send this bunch of frackers packing too.

But the threat from Reform goes beyond their climate denying agenda. 

The truth is, I wish Nigel Farage was just the snake oil, Tory city boy we’ve known about for years.

But the truth is, he has morphed into something even more dangerous 

He’s now a key part of a global network who together want to destroy the ties that bind our communities and our way of life.

And I can sum up the threat in two words: Elon Musk 

Elon Musk

He incites violence on our streets

He calls for the overthrow of our elected government

He is an enabler of disinformation through X.

He thinks he can tell us how to run Britain

Conference, we have a message for Elon Musk: 

Get the hell out of our politics.

Friends let me end by saying this:

What I have learnt over 30 years in politics, through good times and bad, thick and thin, is that what sustains you is something very simple:

Your values.

What you believe in, what you stand for, and who you fight for. 

That’s what the point of politics is.

In fact, that’s the only point of being in politics.

And at this moment of peril for the world and danger for our country we know what our values mean.

We have to fundamentally change who our country works for.

Not tinkering around the edges, or fiddling at the margins.

Fighting always, always for that vision that it says on our party card – of “power, wealth and opportunity…in the hands of the many not the few …”

And this time in our generation, we haven’t come this far, we didn’t work this hard for 14 years through the dark days of Opposition, to hand our country over to Reform.

This is the battle of our time:

Our people and our communities against the political con men who want to sell our country out to the vested interests 

Our people and our communities against narcissistic billionaires who sow disinformation and stoke violence

Our people and communities against those who would rob them of their rights, sow further inequality and take away our freedoms.

Friends, our fate lies in our hands.

We have the power to change Britain for the better.

Let’s use that power, guided always by what we believe and who we are in politics to fight for. 

And with the courage of our convictions we can, we must and we will win the day.

Read the latest news, analysis and commentary on the 2025 Labour party conference in Liverpool here on LabourList.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook.

• • SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour– contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected].
  • SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning.
  • DONATE: If you value our work, please chip in a few pounds a week and become one of our supporters, helping sustain and expand our coverage.
  • PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or projects, email [email protected].
  • ADVERTISE: If your organisation would like to advertise or run sponsored pieces on LabourList‘s daily newsletter or website, contact our exclusive ad partners Total Politics at [email protected].