As Labour’s deputy leader I’d be the party’s organiser in chief

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/27/deputy-leader-labour-richard-burgon

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To reconnect with voters we need to learn from how Bernie Sanders has mobilised local volunteers, says Richard Burgon

Labour party members are dusting themselves down after a shocking election defeat. The first big decision we now face is to choose who is best placed to take the fight to the Tories.

But the deputy leadership election will also have a big impact on whether we win next time. Over the coming years, the deputy leader will be responsible for much of the heavy lifting needed to reconnect with the communities we’ve lost.

It’s an important role and shouldn’t be seen as a leader in waiting, or about building an alternative power base, or being a mischief maker. If elected I want to define the role more clearly than it has been in recent years. I’ll be the campaigner in chief and organiser in chief as we get the party ready to win the next election.

After such a huge loss we have many lessons to learn – and we must learn them for the good of the communities we represent.

But I don’t think our policies were to blame. We didn’t lose because we backed a living wage of £10 an hour, pledged to return rail and mail to the public sector, or proposed an active green industrial strategy to reverse the years of economic decline and deindustrialisation that still blights too much of our country.

While Jeremy Corbyn failed to win a general election, he decisively shifted Labour from lukewarm opposition to cuts and close association with illegal wars to offering a real alternative. I am the only deputy leadership candidate to have supported Jeremy Corbyn in both leadership elections. Some will support me because of that, others won’t. But I don’t regret that decision for a second. It was necessary to change the policy direction of the party in 2015.

Having great policies is nowhere near enough, however. They have to be trusted by the public and, to win a hearing, they have to be organised around. So my priority as deputy leader will be to overhaul Labour’s organisation, campaigning and messaging.

I have campaigned under four different Labour leaders and three deputies. But the image that always sticks in my mind is John Prescott touring the country in 1997 with his famous pledge card. In many ways that sums up what I’ll do as deputy leader. I want us to focus on 10 key policies that are easily understandable on the doorstep and that can be an organising focus for our huge membership.

Every news bulletin we get on, every opposition debate we organise, and every public rally we hold should focus on lodging this alternative in the public’s mind.

That clarity will be needed as we fight for every vote. Whole swaths of the north and Midlands voted Conservative for the first time. There has been much talk of people “lending” their vote to Boris Johnson. But we should not be so complacent as to think those votes will automatically come back. Scotland is a stark reminder that once seats are lost, they can stay lost.

That’s why I want to be a campaigning deputy leader building a party rooted in every community.

Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid is based on mobilising thousands of local volunteers with deep connections to their communities. That’s what I want for our party. It’s how we win back all our former heartlands and build a party that reflects the full diversity of the working class in 21st-century multicultural Britain.

And just as John Prescott seemed to be permanently on his battle bus, I want to be out across the country, not just stuck in Westminster. So, I make this pledge: within the first month of being deputy leader I will visit every single seat we lost. Within the first three months, I’ll visit every seat we need to win next time. And by halfway through this parliament I will have visited every single seat in the country.

But which policies will we focus on to reconnect? I don’t think that’s for me to decide, nor is it for the new leader. As deputy leader I want to devolve power back to Labour’s members and trade unions. Our grassroots must be treated as more than unpaid postal workers delivering leaflets in all weathers.

That’s why at last week’s hustings I was the first candidate to speak out for open selection. Some have dismissed this as an irrelevance. But if it is not the members and trade unions deciding the policies and the candidates, who does? If we are to reconnect with lost communities, don’t we need Labour members from those areas informing everything we do? From the outset I made it clear that I am backing Rebecca Long-Bailey to be Labour’s next leader and the party’s first female leader. But whoever leads Labour, I look forward to working with them. The fightback against the Tories has to begin now.

• Richard Burgon is the Labour MP for Leeds East, the shadow secretary of state for justice and shadow lord chancellor