Transforming Labour: Transforming Britain‏

'Ed Miliband was the overwhelming Compass membership choice for leader and we are delighted he has won. Ed represents the possibility of changing the party; its policies and organisation - so that we can provide the country with the change that it needs', says Compass. See the full story below...
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'Hope and a meaningful way forward are now there to be explored by a new leader and a party with the ambition and the commitment for a truly pragmatic politics; one that is clear where it is headed but sensible about how it gets there.

For the mood of our nation is anxious and fraught. They like the grown up politics of the Coalition but are frightened by the level of cuts, fear job losses and falling house prices. Everyone but the very rich is skating on thin ice. Mental illness rockets, especially amongst our teenagers. No one has the time to think, rest or spend anything but fleeting moments with the ones they love. Our lives are out of our control. Then they see the bankers getting their huge bonuses once more and they rightly feel anger. And everyone shuts away the horror of climate change beyond our ability to live in security and comfort.

But what was created by people can be remade by people. It was politicians, economists and those who had a vested interest who forged markets that are too free and a state that is too remote and overbearing. Our challenge, and that of Labour's new leader, is to harness the power of the market and regulate it for social need, and to democratise the state so that it becomes local, accountable and sensitive. This can be done. We need the political will to do it.

We, that is Compass, the party, the new leader and the wider progressive movement, have to start with the most pressing issue, the cuts. Too many Labour politicians cling to a stale line about 'credibility'. What will the public accept? The Coalition is rolling up its sleeves and getting tough, so should we, the argument goes. But what about the economics of this? Balls, Stiglitz, Krugman, Boris Johnson and many others are absolutely right when they warn of a double dip recession. There is no point playing to the gallery if that means throwing the country back into recession. So we have to put growth first.

Next comes the AV referendum. Labour simply cannot be against this small improvement to our discredited voting system. This opens up the issue of our relationship with the Liberal Democrats. This is the other big political challenge facing Labour; how to move from being tribalists to pluralists. The days of single party government may be over for good. The choice in the future could well be coalition or the wilderness. There is a huge number of Liberal Democrat members and supporters aghast at what their Party leadership have saddled them with. We need to work carefully to bring them to us.

With our help, Ed Miliband has to manage these critical short-term issues alongside the long term and fundamental challenge of renewing social democracy. That means developing a meaningful alternative political economy and moving beyond the bureaucratic and market state to the democratic state. Electoral imperatives cannot be sacrificed for the big picture, but never again can we have a Labour government doesn't know where it is going. As ever we need a compass.

Compass has already had a huge impact on the party and its direction. A whole swath of policies that Compass has pushed, from a financial transaction tax and a graduate tax, to a living wage and a high pay commission are fast becoming party policy. Now they have to be joined up and extended. We will work constructively where possible and critically where necessary to keep the new leader on track.

We feel for David Miliband who still has a big role to play in Labour's renewal. No out and out Blairite himself, he was and would have been hamstrung with too much baggage of people and ideas that are. For the challenge we face is beyond the scope of even a modified New Labour.

Social democracy in Britain and across Europe is in crisis. Earlier this year the once mighty German SPD got only 23% of the vote. Here Labour suffered its second worse result with only 29%. And last weekend the Swedish Social Democrats lost consecutively for the first time ever with only 30% of the vote. The decline of class identity, the globalisation of capital and the atomisation of our lives have all caught up with the left. It is time for something very different if we are to create a more equal, sustainable and democratic world.

The challenge though starts with the party itself. This is the one thing Ed Miliband now has direct power over. The way he leads the party will show how he wants to lead the country. We detect in Ed that the command and control model of Thatcher, Blair and Brown might be shunned. This is critical. If Labour is to be trusted by the country it must first show its leader can trust his members; and its Shadow Cabinet, with a collegiate style of leadership in which an enduring sense of purpose can be built. The party, like the country needs to be reinvigorated and made a new through a radical process of deep democratisation. That is why today we have launched a Charter for the Transformation of Labour. Its big call is for a Party Chair elected by the membership and accountable to them.

But internal renewal is far from enough. Labour has to become part of a movement again, with other organisations, the unions, wider civil society and yes, other parties. This is the only way real and lasting change can happen. The days of a small elite thinking they can run a party and then a whole country must now be left behind us. The good society is only possible if we all have a hand in its creation.

This is an exciting moment to be on the left. Real possibilities open up in the face of demanding challenges. It is up to us to make it the start of the road to a better world.'