(09-22-2018, 12:40 PM)Dame Oona Millar Wrote: Name of Candidate: Angela Harvey
Name of Proposer: Dame Oona Millar
Name of Seconder: Angela Harvey
Declaration of Candidate's consent: to follow

• Restore the collective bargaining power of the trade unions
  
• Formulate a Wage Ratio Cap to ensure everyone gets paid their fair share
  
• Lower food prices by negotiating lower external EEC tariffs and trading with our Commonwealth
  
• Establish a new Price Commission to monitor and exercise price control
  
• Make Labour MPs more engaging and accountable to our local constituency parties
  

• I want to restore the powers of workers to collectively bargain for their interests. The Tories' vicious attacks on the trade union movement in the 1980s led to a membership reduction of 5 million, which combined with the oppressive legislation passed by the last government weakened the power of unions to protect workers. We need a new balance between corporate employers and workers, and I pledge to find this new balance.
  
• It will be my priority as Deputy Labour Leader in government to negotiate lower external EEC tariffs on food, bringing food imports from the Commonwealth and across the globe and reducing food prices for British consumers. Food prices skyrocketed during the 13 years of Thatcherite rule and they did nothing to address the situation. I will work to change that.
  
• Labour MPs and local constituency parties must come closer together. We're one Labour movement. I will do everything in my power as Deputy Labour Leader to bring about greater transparency between MPs and local parties. After more than a decade of division and confrontation, we need unity and dialogue and I believe this starts within our own party.
  

Quote:Comrades, friends,

It is an absolute privilege to be part of a three-man race for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. The fact that not only do we have two excellent candidates to be our next leader and Prime Minister, but also three candidates to be number two, is a sign that the Labour Party is alive and kicking as a party as well as back in government. I genuinely believe that thanks to Neil Kinnock - his passing is a loss to our Movement - and Roy Hattersley, we are now a stronger party than we were when we were last in government. We've come back together, we've reclaimed important Labour values and we have pushed into government with a modern, forward-looking agenda for the 1990s.

Understandably, all eyes are on the race between Michael Nash and Agnes Hamstead. It is the choice between these two candidates that will determine the future priorities of our party in government in the most immediate way. This race is different. As Deputy Leader, you do not get to steer the ship directly. But you are a key part of a larger team, assisting the leader who does. I am not going to give you a list of policy priorities for government today, because our manifesto and our Policy Review for the 1990s have hit the nail on the head and it's our leader's job to build on those solid foundations. Instead, what I offer you is a vision on our values, a vision on our party and our movement, that can contribute to any leader's leadership of the party.

I think that while our priorities are and must be set by our manifesto and the leadership, we need a Deputy Leader with a vision to take our party forward ideologically and politically. I have made it my life's work to help those who wish to better themselves through adult education. When I moved from lecturing at Durham to tutoring at the Open University, it was precisely for this reason: that everyone deserves the proper equipment to make something of their life, to learn the necessary skills or to change direction if they feel the need. It is that theme of aspiration, of opportunity and freedom to realise one's potential that is one of the most enduring parts of our movement. Weren't we founded to represent Labour? To fight for the working man and improve his or her life? To contribute to opportunities for ordinary people, fight for a country in which not the bank account of your parents but determination and hard work determine what you can or cannot do?

Throughout the 1980s, the Conservatives have backed us into a corner and stolen this theme from us. They turned aspiration into the watchword of those who had everything in their favour to succeed already. But no longer! With our Policy Review for the 1990s, we have reclaimed that theme, and I was privileged to be on the 'People at Work' group that put skills front and centre.

What I mean to say is this. We have reclaimed themes that should be ours at the polls, themes we lost the trust of the public on because of the destructive conflicts we have lost the trust of the public on. We must never again lose hold of these solid Labour values. We must keep the course now and let people see that there is but one political home for aspiration, liberty and patriottism for all in Britain, and that is the Labour Party. This return to government gives us a golden opportunity to do so. If we look back for but one minute instead of forward to the 1990s, we risk losing it. Those who are only now returning to vote Labour and whose trust we need to regain are waiting for us to prove that we meant what we said about building an Opportunity Britain, about combining social justice and economic efficiency, about being there both for those who are working hard to improve their lifes and those who are not at liberty to do so for want of resources and support.

I do not see any leadership candidate who will disagree. And I will work tirelessly to help them prove that to our voters, our core supporters, the ordinary working people of Britain who are looking to us to rise to the occasion, effect positive change and be re-elected to five more years.

But more importantly, I believe that while a Deputy Leader can support the leader in the policy area, there's an even bigger job in being there for the party. Especially with our leader in Downing Street, making the decisions alongside the Cabinet, our party needs a Deputy Leader who can pay attention to building our party into an even stronger, more united and more purposeful force in the long run. There is work to be done that isn't flashy, that isn't immediately obvious to the eye, but which is crucial if we want Labour to regain and remain the broad force for ordinary working people that we've always been.

I am talking, first and foremost, about our members, the lifeblood of our movement. Kinnock and Hattersley did an excellent job of extending their influence, but there is yet work to be done. It is now almost a decade ago that the push for One Member One Vote began. Conference has endorsed it time and time again; we've had a consultation and two commissions. Now is the time to push forward and make it a reality. Because why shouldn't we take the next step in accountability to our constituency parties and the Labour Movement as a whole and extend that accountability to the broadest possible franchise? Why shouldn't members and affiliates together determine our next leader? Why shouldn't all members in a constituency get to vote on who we are running as their Member of Parliament?

You can have any amount of meetings with our MP, but that is not what the link between MPs and the party should be about. Our members are our ambassadors in society and the ambassadors of society in the party. They are often on the workfloor, every day, facing the everyday concerns of ordinary people and talking about them. Even when they cannot attend the selection meeting or get onto the relevant committees, they deserve voice, because it is them who keep us honest, who keep us in touch. As your Deputy Leader, I will work with our leader to push on and make OMOV a reality, implementing the proposals of the Trade Union Links Review Group by empowering our trade union affiliates to register to vote directly in the trade union section. This will solve the one remaining issue with OMOV as it stood, which is the valid concern for the breadth of the Labour movement.

It's also a matter of opportunity. I want to give every member of this movement the opportunity to get involved. I want to lower barriers towards participation, because I firmly believe that once members have that vote, some of them will move on to become more active and involved in our movement, both as part of what we do and among their friends and family, spreading the word.

That participation is also what made the Policy Review such a success. The large-scale listening exercise we conducted before the Policy Review Groups went to work was an absolutely crucial factor in the success of the review. And I think it's a model for the future which we have to stick to. We need to speak the language and push the priorities of the people in Britain that rely on us in addition to the common sense of our movement expressed at conference. That is why, as Deputy Leader, I want to be at the front of a continued listening exercise, taking time off from Westminster to go into the country and, where our leader cannot accompany me, relay the concerns of ordinary people to the PLP, the Cabinet and to Downing Street. We should use this continued Labour Listens campaign as a way to inform our policy-making in a way similar to the Policy Review, founding a National Policy Forum in addition to conference to continue to update Labour's agenda for the 1990s and beyond.

Comrades, people around the country are relying on us. They have given us their trust again because we have set aside the rivalries and preoccupations of the past and formed a common narrative of optimism, aspiration and liberty. We owe it to them, as well as to the memory of Neil Kinnock, to soldier on. To keep listening to them, to keep speaking their language, to keep empowering those in the country who are the life of our movement. I may not be running for leader. I may not be the one in Downing Street setting the policy agenda. But as your Deputy Leader, you can be sure I will help us keep that course, and reclaim Labour's values and mission every day.

Thank you.

• a Wage Ratio Cap that will ensure every worker gets a fair pay. She accused the Tories of introducing a culture of selfish individualism and corporate profiteering in which the hard work of employees was not awarded as it should be, but instead given out to those at the top of the corporate pyramid. Instead, Angela's work will focus on working out a Wage Ratio Cap within a business, that will make work pay.
  
• a new Price Commission with powers to monitor and exercise control over prices. The ever-increasing corporate profit subsidised by Tory tax cuts has meant that ordinary British consumers are ripped off without any justifiable reason for skyrocket-high prices. Angela promises to formulate a policy for price monitoring and control by means of a Price Commission that will work in the interests of ordinary consumers.
  
• Give constituency Labour parties a greater say and greater engagement with Labour MPs. Angela Harvey argues that the Labour movement is based on the fundamental principles of a strong united proletariat. To represent the voice of ordinary people, of the needy, the vulnerable and the working class was the reason the Labour party was created. As we approach the new millennium, Angela pledges to preserve current and find new ways to spread right across every level of the party.
  

• A commitment to the 1992 manifesto and the platform for a Strong Social Britain. Angela argued that it is pivotal for the Labour party in government to implement its 1992 election pledges, and that the manifesto is underpinned by the platform for Strong Social Britain which will advance the Labour movement and build a cohesive and compassionate society, healing the wounds of 13 years of confrontational Tory rule.
  
• Building a Labour team we will all be proud of. Having publicly campaigned for her, Harvey said she will support the new Labour Leader and Prime Minister Agnes Hamstead to build a Labour team everyone will be proud of. Harvey's work under the leadership of Agnes Hamstead will be to unite the entire Labour movement behind the Prime Minister and the government, ensuring the government's focus will be solely on policy, unlike the inner fightings observed in the last 2 Tory administrations.
  
• Workers' unions, workers' voice and workers' programme for government. The working class needs to once again fight for its interest and get the representation it deserves. By working to restore the trade union collective bargaining power, improve accountability to constituency Labour parties, and implement the Labour government's programme, Angela Harvey claims the Labour movement will build this compassionate, human and Strong Social Britain that looks after individuals, communities and society.
  

• Finishing the push for OMOV. "Since Neil Kinnock started the push for One Member One Vote in candidate selection and leadership elections, there have been two reports, a number of conference resolutions and a number of consultations. We can now introduce OMOV confident that both the trade union movement and labour members will get their proper influence. Members deserve to be involved in selecting their MP and electing their leader."
  
• Reclaiming aspiration. "With the Policy Review, we've finally moved to reclaim the themes of aspiration and opportunity from the Labour Party. I think Agnes Hamstead's policy to increase access to Higher Education is precisely the sort of measure we need to build on that. I will work with her to develop measures like it, and ensure that our common commitment to opportunity for all is realised."
  
• Continuing to listen. "One of the key strengths of the Policy Review and the 1992 manifesto it inspired was the 'Labour Listens' campaign in which we went out and listened to ordinary people. We need to keep in touch both with those who voted for us and those who didn't to keep updating our policies. We must never again allow the preoccupations of the past to turn us inwards again; instead, I will push to establish the proposed National Policy Forum as a sort of permanent Policy Review to build on the success of the Review and do for the 2000s and what Meet the Challenge, Make the Change did for the 1990s."