CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Iain McNicol, General Secretary of the Labour Party, speaking to Labour Party Annual Conference 2013 in Brighton, said:

As ever, we are saddened by the loss of friends and comrades and humbled by those who dedicate their lives to build social justice.

Thank you Purna for that welcome to Brighton.

We look forward to seeing you, Nancy Platts and Peter Kyle as Labour MPs for Brighton & Hove after the next election.

This week we’ll be discussing the big issues facing Britain. We’ll hear Ed Miliband set out his vision for our country.

There’ll be time to hear from many of our new councillors, as well as the seven new MPs elected since conference last year.

But I want to start my speech by praising the people who helped to put them there.

People who show incredible dedication. Who spend months away from friends and families. Who work around the clock on Labour’s campaigns

Our Labour Party staff. The best in the world. We should thank them every day.

We’ll hear from some of our wonderful parliamentary candidates this week.

93 selected in the battleground seats, as I promised they would be
But above all I am looking forward to hearing from you, our delegates:

The nurses, shop-workers, engineers, fire-fighters, postal workers, teachers, hard-working people from all walks of life.

We are the party of labour - the people who work, and build, and care and teach.

People who bring life into the world……raise up our children….. and bring comfort at the dying of the light.

People who civilise our country, and strengthen our communities.

And here in Brighton, we can reach beyond this hall to the people of Britain, with our ideas, our values and our vision for a better world.

But remember this: dreams are never enough.

Meetings change little. Debates melt into thin air.

Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King didn’t just stand at the Lincoln Memorial and make a wonderful, powerful, memorable speech. He built up a civil rights movement.

That’s my argument this morning: What matters now is how we organise. How we build campaigns. Tackle cynicism. Prove the worth of politics.

If you study how Labour’s pioneers created our party, one vital insight shines from the pages of our history:

We were not founded as a Westminster caucus or cosy club.We were a movement, sending men and women into parliament, to breach the walls of privilege, to give the people a platform.

Unlike the Tories. Unlike the Liberals, Labour was a party of the community first, and Westminster second.

The trade union branches, the socialists, the Fabians, the co-operators, the youth….. and the women’s leagues: these were the community organisers in those early days.

And one of the earliest community organisers was Keir Hardie.He learned his politics in the union, in the church and in the Temperance League.

Campaigning in the mining communities of Cumbernauld, Coatbridge and Cambuslang. And from chapel, union and Temperance came the Labour Party - with its street corner meetings, banners and parades, songs and cycling,And a presence wherever there was an injustice to be righted or a community to be defended, from landlord, boss or rackateer.

Community organising is not just our tradition; it is the shining key to our future as an organisation.

Modern parties must be more than vote-harvesting machines. No longer top-down, centralised, all about spin.That belongs to an age when people listened to cassettes, when messages came via pagers, when only birds tweeted.

So….. we change.

And where we’ve made the change, we’ve shown it works.

On the Wirral, Labour’s campaigners organised new ways to reach new voters. They engaged young people, who went on to join the party. They staged a production of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. They raised £8,000 in a few weeks. And this is the crucial part - they stood new activist Phillip Brightmore for a council by-election, and beat the Tories to win the seat

And it’s not just on Merseyside. From Norwich to Preston; From Cardiff to Southampton, we are getting back to the grassroots community campaigning .

Where Labour councils adopt the same approach, it can have a radical and transformative effect. Devolving power like in Barnsley. Getting tenants on the housing boards like in Rochdale. Crowd-sourcing the manifesto like in Edinburgh.

And you know, when the people of Edinburgh were asked what they wanted, they said: a community-owned childcare co-operative, with more places at lower cost. And that’s what the Labour council delivered. When we listen, and learn, and trust, and then give power back to the people, we win their support.

That’s Labour’s tradition of radicalism. And that’s why Ed Miliband’s plans for building stronger, deeper links with millions of trade unionists are so important. It’s the next step on that same radical path.

Imagine constituency parties with 800, 900 even 1,000 members.That’s what we can achieve together.

Last year - I stood up at conference in Manchester and promised we would have 100 organisers by the end of 2013. Here in Brighton, I can announce we have over 90 organisers in place now, with a further 20 joining them next month. 110 full-time Labour organisers across the United Kingdom. And some of them are here at conference - let’s welcome them here and give them the cheer they deserve.

Aren’t they brilliant? You know what they look like to me? Victory. Not victory based on some narrow coalition of support and a few thousand swing voters.But a One Nation alliance of progressive people, across all parts of the country.

Yes we’re delighted when those who voted for Cameron or Clegg, come to Labour.But what about the tens of thousands of first-time voters? And the millions who never vote? That’s who we should be going after too - not dipping into an ever-diminishing pool, but creating a new, deeper reservoir of support.

By next year, we will go further our organisers will work with our candidates, and mobilise 100 new activists in every battleground seat.

Ten thousand activists taking action by this time next year. That’s my pledge. This is a movement on the march. This is what the inspiring Arnie Graff has been showing us across the country.

It’s about fixing a broken, discredited politics. Rebuilding trust. Forging relationships, not forcing transactions. Building our capacity by involving more activists. Proving Labour can make a difference by our deeds, not just our words.

From our earliest days, to today, and into the days ahead. This is who we are.
As the great poet Seamus Heaney once wrote: ‘The longed-for tidal wave of justice
can rise up.’ And conference when it does, nothing can hold us back.

Thank you.