Labour Party - Labour Leadership 2015 Victory Speech lyrics

Can I start by thanking everyone who took part in this election, this huge democratic exercise of more than half a million people all across this country. It showed our party and our movement, pa**ionate, democratic, diverse, united and absolutely determined in our quest for a decent and better society that is possible for all. And there are many people I want to thank before I say a few words, if I may? First of all to Iain McNicol, the general secretary of the party and all of the party staff for their incredible hard work during this campaign, the general election campaign, and all the other campaigns that we do and will continue to do. Iain, thank you very much and please make sure all our staff are aware of the appreciation we all have for all of them - thank you. I want also to pay a huge thanks and tribute to Harriet Harman who has been our acting leader and our deputy leader and before that, our acting leader. I've known Harriet for a very long time, and what I would say of her is her absolute commitment and pa**ion for decency, equality and the rights of women in our society is something that we will honour her for, thank her for and we have legislation that's been brought about by her determination. Harriet, thank you so much for all you've done and the way in which you've led the party since the tragedy of the election result in May. I want also to thank and congratulate Tom Watson on his election as deputy leader of the party. Tom is pa**ionate about communication, pa**ionate about holding the state and unaccountable people who don't wish to be accountable to account. Tom's your man to do that. I want also to thank Ed Miliband for all the work he did as leader of our party. I had a very long conversation with Ed a couple of days ago and I thanked him for his work as leader of the party. I thanked him for his work as environment secretary and somebody who's pa**ionate about defending the world's environment against the way it's being destroyed at the present time. But I also thanked him for the way in which he stood up to the abuse which he received by much of our media, and the dignity he showed when his late father, the great Ralph Miliband, was so brutally abused by some of our media. So Ed, thank you for all of that. I want to thank the fellow leadership candidates. We've been, we're discussing the number, whether it's 29, 35 or 39 hustings we've been to together since this election started. We'll discuss that later and exchange diaries, but it's been a fascinating experience for all of us and I wanna thank them for the way the debates were conducted, the way that we were able to put forward political debate and political differences and still come out at the end of it with a group hug. We're going to reform ourselves as an ABBA tribute band and continue this work in the future. Andy Burnham was our health secretary and Andy's pa**ion and determination for a National Health Service as a human right, free at the point of use, is something that comes over every time Andy speaks. And his pa**ion for comprehensive education to ensure all children have a reasonable, fair and decent start in life. I want to say thank you to Yvette Cooper for all the work she's done, in government and in the party, but in particular, over the past few weeks, helping to shape and turn round public opinion to show sympathy and humanity towards refugees and the way they're treated. And one of my first acts as the leader of the party will be to go to the demonstration this afternoon to show support for the way refugees must be treated and should be treated in this country. I wanna thank Liz Kendall for her friendship during this campaign, for the way we've managed to have some... moderately different opinions on a number of issues. But we've managed to maintain a very good friendship and Liz is somebody that I admire because she absolutely stands up for what she believes in. Whether it's easy, simple or popular or uneasy, not simple or popular. So Liz, thank you very much. Those late night train rides will never be the same again! So thank you to my fellow candidates, and to the thousands of party members that have attended the hustings events all over the country. And it's quite amazing that every one of them was completely full, standing room only, and many many other members and supporters were unable to get along to them. That is a tribute to our party, all the candidates both for deputy leader and for leader, and the way in which our members want pa**ionately to engage in debate and be able to influence party policy and make our party more inclusive, more democratic, and their membership better listened to in the future. I want to thank my own campaign team. They've been absolutely amazing. We came together after we had got onto the ballot paper, I appreciate, with difficulty, and I wanna say thank you to the 36 members of Parliament — well, 35 plus me, because I nominated myself, for nominating me for this position. I know some of them had possibly some reluctance to do so, it is reported, but they did so in a spirit of inclusion and a spirit of democracy, and I thank them for that, and I look forward to working with all of them after this election campaign because we've got great work to do in the party. And so our campaign began with very little and we gained support, we gained volunteers, and I thank the unions that nominated me — Unite, UNISON, the PSSA, ASLEF, the Communication Workers Union, the Prison Officers Assosication, the Bakers Union, The Socialist Education Association, the Socialist Health Association and the support received from the RMT Union and the FBU, and all the other unions that took part in this campaign. We are a party organically linked together between the unions and party membership and all the affiliated organisations. That is where we get our strength from. And as a former union organiser in NUPE, now part of UNISON, I fully understand the importance of unions at the workplace, defending people's rights, standing up for their members, and that's why I don't appreciate what this government is trying to do to shackle unions in the Trade Union Bill they're bringing forward on Monday. Our campaign attracted the support of 16,000 volunteers all over the country. Organisers in each part of the country that organised all the events and meetings that we have held, and in total we've done 99 of those events. Today is the century, and we are here at the end of this very long campaign. And it's been quite incredible the numbers of people that have come forward to join our party. But before I go on to that, I want to just say a big thank you, they all know who they are, to my many personal friends, many people, everyone in Islington North Labour Party for electing me to Parliament eight times up until May of this year for their fantastic comradeship, friendship and support. It's been quite amazing and I absolutely value their advice. Sometimes it's advice you don't always wanna receive, but that's the best advice you get. And I say thank you to all of them in Islington North. I also say a huge thank you to all of my widest family. All of them. Because they've been through the most appalling levels of abuse from some of our media over the past three months. It's been intrusive, it's been abusive, it's been simply wrong. And I say to journalists, attack public political figures, make criticisms of them, that's OK, that is what politics is about. But please, don't attack people who didn't ask to be put in the limelight, merely wanna get on with their lives. Leave them alone. Leave them alone in all circumstances. During this amazing three months, our party has changed. We've grown enormously. We've grown enormously because of the hopes of so many people for a different Britain. A better Britain. A more equal Britain. A more decent Britain. They're fed up with the inequality, the injustice, the unnecessary poverty. All those issues have brought people in in a spirit of hope and optimism. So, I say to the new members of the party, or those that have joined in as registered supporters, or affiliated supporters. Welcome. Welcome to our party. Welcome to our movement. And I say to those returning to the party who were in it before and felt disillusioned and went away. Welcome back. Welcome back to your party. Welcome home. And as the media and maybe many of us simply didn't understand the views of many young people within our society, they have been written off as a non-political generation who are relatively not interested, hence the relatively low turnout and low levels of registration of young people in the last general election. They weren't. They are a very political generation that were turned off by the way in which politics was being conducted, and not attracted or not interested in it. We have to and must change that. So, the fight back now of our party gathers speed and gathers pace. I'm delighted that Kezia Dugdale is here today, our leader in Scotland. We're all gonna be campaigning in Scotland, for Labour in Scotland, for those great traditions, those great Labour traditions in Scotland. I thank Carwyn Jones for his leadership and the way in which we're gonna fight in Wales, and I congratulate them on ending the internal market in the health service in Wales, something we want to do in the rest of Britain. And I say congratulations to Marvin Rees, selected yesterday as our mayoral candidate in Bristol. We're all gonna be down there, Marvin, helping you and supporting you to win Bristol. And to my friend Sadiq Khan, who's been elected as our mayoral candidate for London. Sadiq, we're gonna be campaigning together. And we're gonna be campaigning together particularly on the crucial issue of housing in London. I am fed up with the social cleansing of London by this Tory government and its policies. We need a Labour mayor. We need a Labour mayor in London who can ensure we do house everyone in London. We do end the sky-high rent. We do end the insecurity of those living in the private rented sector. We need a Labour mayor to bring that about in this wonderful, great city of London. And Sadiq's the man to do it. This week, the Tories will show what they're really made of. On Monday, they have the Trade Union Bill, designed to undermine even the ILO Conventions and shackle democratic unions and destroy another element of democracy within our society. We have to oppose that. They're also pushing the Welfare Reform Bill, which will bring such misery and poverty to so many of the poorest in our society. I want us a movement to be proud, strong, and to stand up and say we want to live in a society where we don't pa** by on the other side of those people rejected by an unfair welfare system. Instead, we reach out to end the scourge of homelessness and desperation that so many people face in our society. We're strong enough and big enough and able to do that. That is what we're about. There are many, many issues we face, and many people face desperation in other parts of the world. And I think it's quite incredible the way the mood in Europe has changed over the past few weeks of understanding that people fleeing from wars, they are the victims of wars, they are the generational victims of war, they are the intergenerational victims of war, end up in desperation, end up in terrible places, end up trying to gain a place of safety, end up trying to exercise their refugee rights. They're human beings, just like you, just like me. Let's deal with the refugee crisis with humanity, with support, with help, with compa**ion, to try to help people who are trying to get to a place of safety, trying to help people who are stuck in refugee camps but recognise going to war creates a legacy of bitterness and problems. Let us be a force for change in the world. A force for humanity in the world. A force for peace in the world and a force that recognises we cannot go on like this with grotesque levels of global inequality, grotesque threats to our environment all around the world, without the rich and powerful governments stepping up to the plate to make sure our world becomes safer and better, and those people don't end up in poverty, in refugee camps, wasting their lives away when they could be contributing so much to the good of all of us on this planet. We are one world. Let that message go out today from this conference centre here in London. I conclude by this. The Tories have used the economic crisis 2008 to propose a terrible burden on the poorest people in this country. Those that have seen their wages frozen or cut. Those that can't afford to even sustain themselves properly. Those that rely on food banks to get by. It's not right, it's not necessary, and it's gotta change. We need an economic strategy that improves people's lives, that expands our economy, that reaches out to care for everybody. You can't do that if at the same time, you do nothing about grotesque levels of inequality within our society. We need to develop an economic policy that deals with those issues. And so, our party is about justice, is about democracy, it is about the great traditions we walk on. Those that founded our party and our movement, those that stood up for human rights and justice, the right for women to vote, the right for others to vote. We stand here today because of their work. But we go forward now as a movement and a party, bigger than we've ever been for a very, very long time. Stronger than we've ever been for a very long time. More determined than we've been for a very long time. To show to everyone that the objectives of our party are intact. Our pa**ion is intact. Our demand for humanity is intact. And we as a party are gonna reach out to everyone in this country to take us on that journey together, so no one is left on the side. Everyone has a decent chance in life and a decent place within our society. That's what Labour was brought about to achieve. That is what we're gonna achieve. This election campaign is, as we see here, about shaping our future. Our party is going to, I hope, become more inclusive, more involved, more democratic, and we're gonna shape the future of everyone in this country in a way that I think will be remembered as something that is good for everyone, that brings about the justice that we all crave, and that is what brought us into this wonderful party and this wonderful movement ourselves. I say thank you to everyone for all their support, friendship and comradeship during this election process. And I say thank you in advance to us all working together to achieve great victories not just electorally for Labour but emotionally for the whole of our society to show we don't have to be unequal, it doesn't have to be unfair, poverty isn't inevitable. Things can, and they will, change. Thank you very much.