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Johann Lamont MSP, Scottish Labour Leader, in a speech to Labour’s Annual Conference 2014 in Manchester, said:

Conference, last year I promised I would do all I could to keep the family of nations that is the United Kingdom together.

Conference – this year I can say it’s good to be with the family.

We must look forward not back. But it would be wrong to celebrate our referendum victory without asking how we got there in the first place.

People want change. They are right to want change and we must reflect on the fact we did not offer the people of Scotland a vision of change they felt they could believe in.

We allowed disappointment to become despair and to ferment into nationalism.

Conference, we must never ever allow that to happen again.

The people of Scotland have rejected the false offer of the nationalists.

The deceitful contortion that we could have a Reaganomic tax regime and Scandanavian welfare state. That Scotland could prosper while throwing away the benefits of the Union we have built with our neighbours over three hundred years.

But conference we must do more.

We built the Scottish Parliament to address a democratic deficit.

Now we must use it to address a deficit of hope.

Because at the end of the day powers to Parliaments mean nothing if they don’t mean the empowerment of people.

The right to work. The right to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

The right not just to a job but to a career.

The right to a proper home. The right to world class health care. The right to a proper education.

And the right to the hope, the belief, the certainty that tomorrow will be better than today.

I welcome Ed’s commitment to raising the minimum wage to £8 an hour. A measure to change real lives not a constitution.

But we must build on commitments like that to build a better country.

It is policies like that which will build a Labour victory in 2015, and I look forward to working with Ed in Number Ten to lead Scottish Labour to victory in 2016.

I stand here in Manchester. Not a foreign city but a home city. A city like my home of Glasgow.

And I want to learn what is best of Manchester to make Glasgow better and share what Glasgow can teach this city.

And within miles of where I stand I know there are foodbanks as there are in Glasgow.

And let me say I believe hunger is a moral crime whether it is here or in my home town and that is why we stand together in solidarity to end hunger.

Conference, I believe those who sought change through separation were wrong, but I salute their passion for change, I salute their commitment and I ask them to share their energy with us to change Scotland and change Britain and build that society we all seek without borders.

There is only one goal no matter how the paths may differ.

The goal is a truly just society where the talents of all can flourish and the talents of none is wasted.

One where compassion is not a hope but a guarantee. One where hands stretch out in friendship not to bar the way. One where lifting up our neighbour is not a burden but a privilege.

We live in a time of scarcity not plenty. These are times when our moral view is tested most. And that is why we must commit in these, the toughest of times, that we believe in a just society which says to those with the least you will get the most of what we have.

Conference. I’m older than I look. As a schoolgirl I remember my excitement at the hope that Harold Wilson would be elected as a Labour prime minister.

A while ago now perhaps. But what he said then is true today and will always be true.

“If the Labour Party is not a moral crusade then we are nothing.”
Conference we are a moral crusade.

A crusade to heal our country. To bind wounds. To settle division. To reconcile and rebuild.

We may taste defeat but we will never be defeated.

For however hard we strive – whatever we achieve – our task will never be finished.

Not while there is one injustice. Not when the dream of one remains unfulfilled.

Not when one person wants.

Our vision is not constrained by the borders of nationalism.

And that is what makes our vision all the richer.

A diverse Britain where diversity excites us not divides us.

One where we see difference, we seek understanding not division.

One where we celebrate who we are and joy in our neighbours’ understanding of themselves.

For my enemies are not countries or nationalities.

My enemies are poverty, prejudice and paucity of hope.

And to defeat them, I do not push others away, I embrace them as brothers and sisters and I welcome them to our crusade.

To those seeking change who feel daunted today, I say raise your head.
Come with me. Join with us.

We won’t just make Scotland a more just place, we will make all of the United Kingdom a fairer, more equal just place to live and that will make our justice all the stronger.

We have chosen not to leave the United Kingdom. Now we must lead the United Kingdom.

We are the party of the NHS. The welfare state. The minimum wage. Of devolution. Now we must change the lives of ordinary people in the 21st century the way we did in the last one.

We must engage. We must excite. We must transform.
Conference. We stand united.

Let us be the crusade the Labour Party was put on earth to be.

We are the change makers. Let us change the world.

Ends