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Douglas Alexander MP, Shadow Foreign Secretary, in a speech to Labour’s Annual Conference 2014 in Manchester, said:

Conference, we gather here in Manchester just days after a defining decision for our country.

The referendum campaign in Scotland was about more than party politics. It was about who we are, what we believe and what we hope for as a nation.

And when, as Scots, we sent out the call to our friends and comrades in the Labour Party you answered that call.

By coming to campaign alongside us, you demonstrated solidarity in action.

So today from this stage, let me urge this conference to thank each and every Labour Party member who in recent weeks played their part in saving the United Kingdom.

Conference, I know that many people’s confidence in the United Kingdom in recent years has been shaken - both at home and abroad.

As the problems we face become more complex and challenging, people’s confidence in the power of politics is declining.

But what I saw in Scotland this summer in town halls and village halls, in school halls and church halls, from the Highlands and the Hebrides, to the Borders and to our great cities, taught me that we can win back that confidence.

We can uphold the idea of solidarity.

We can work together across borders.

We can defeat isolationist ideas and yes, we can defeat narrow nationalism.

And just as we must strive to uphold progressive politics here at home, so too we must strive to embody these values in our foreign policy.

Conflicts in Iraq, and Syria, the destabilisation of Eastern Europe, turmoil across the Middle East, have dominated the headlines in recent months.

In the face of such events, the next Labour government’s foreign policy will reject two fallacies; the hubris that somehow as the United Kingdom we can re-order the world, or alternatively that we should simply settle for strategic shrinkage and decline.

Because for Britain to now retreat from the world would be as foolish as it would be futile.

The next Labour government’s foreign policy will be proudly multilateral - acknowledging our common challenges and defending our shared interests.

Turning our back on the instability of the Middle East, and the threat of ISIL, is simply not an option.

Not for Labour.

Not for Britain.

But in combatting this threat we must seek to be as effective as we are resolute.

And that means learning the lessons of the past: a broad partnership across the region, together with genuinely multilateral alliances.

And multilateral efforts will be needed also to address the continuing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

2,131 people were killed in Gaza this summer - the vast majority of them civilians. Hundreds of them innocent children.

The sheer scale of that suffering itself makes enemies out of neighbours.

And that is why while the Prime Minister inexplicably stayed silent, Labour stood up and spoke out.

We condemned not only the Hamas rockets but the Israeli incursion into Gaza.

We understood then and we understand today, there can be no military solution to this conflict.

Only two states for two peoples, will bring the justice, peace and security that all sides deserve.

So the blockades must end.

The occupation must end.

The rockets must cease.

Terror must cease.

And meaningful negotiations must begin.

Now, new threats are emerging not just in the Middle East but also in Eastern Europe.

Until Russian troops violated the sovereignty of Ukraine in 2014, no country had seized the territory of another European country by force since 1945.

So Europe does now face a moment of reckoning.

Which is why Labour has supported European sanctions against Russia.

And why, as Europe, we must stand united in our commitment to Ukraine.

And yet our Prime Minister has spent the past four years burning bridges instead of building alliances with other European countries.

As a Tory leader, he has settled for following his back- benchers instead of leading his party.

Britain leaving Europe would present the biggest threat to British national prosperity in a generation.

And as Labour we understand that Europe is both a strategic, as well as an economic asset for Britain.

Like British business, we understand that sleepwalking towards exit is not just bad politics, its disastrous economics.

As Labour, now with 20 Labour Members of the European Parliament, we want to see Britain at the heart of a changed European Union.

Europe can be made to work better for Britain.

That is what Labour will deliver.

That is what Britain deserves.

Conference, 2014 on any reckoning has already proved a momentous year.

The very existence of our country was challenged.

Together we worked and campaigned to defend it.

This year, Labour led the fight to save the United Kingdom.

Next year, with your support, we can change the United Kingdom.

That is our task.

That is our responsibility.

And working together - it can be our achievement.

Ends