Tomorrow, Jeremy Corbyn will be re-elected as leader of the Labour Party. Jeremy leads in every poll and in local party nominations. Of course nothing is certain in politics – as the past few years have shown – but it doesn’t feel like much of a risk to predict Jeremy’s impending success.
Of course that’s also the result we’re hoping for at UNISON, having nominated Jeremy for leader two years in a row. He has our support, and we look forward to working with him once again as the leader of our party and our movement.
Jeremy has shown time and again that he is on the right side of the issues that matter to our members – fighting austerity, reversing the public sector pay freeze and investing in a fairer economy.
That said, we certainly won’t be sorry to see the back of this leadership contest. Triggered by a few politicians in Westminster without the knowledge of the wider movement and after less than a year since the last contest – it has produced much heat but relatively little light.
It certainly hasn’t done anything to advance the cause of Labour as a party of government, with the party looking as far from power and changing the country for the better than at any other point in my life.
In the days and weeks ahead, Jeremy and his team must show that they can plot a course to achieve the two biggest tasks on his or any other leader’s desk – uniting the party and winning the next election.
So we need to see a shadow cabinet that unites all of those who are willing and able to serve in the shadow cabinet. That means the leadership must be open to plans that allow the best possible array of talent to be used against this dreadful Tory government.
But what we absolutely cannot have are actions which stoke disunity.
So that means Labour MPs should refrain from a running commentary on every disagreement they might have with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, but in return, Jeremy and his team must slap down those who would pursue divisive tactics such as rule changes to skew future leadership elections and make mass deselections of MPs easier to do.
That means we could do without the release – intentional or otherwise – of dodgy disunity dossiers too. Parties are not united by threats, intimidation or fear, they are united by the power to inspire. That’s something that Jeremy has managed to do to the membership, and which he will, I hope, seek to do with Labour MPs too.
And neither should (or I hope, would) any trade unionist take part in a witch hunt against hard working Labour Party staff.
If our members had to face the constant threat of the sack we’d be appalled – the same should apply to those who work tirelessly to try and help labour members, councillors and MPs win elections across our country.
The political challenge facing Labour should not be underestimated.
If we cannot unite the majority of our party – and the majority of those who we have elected as our representatives – behind a political vision, then how can we ever begin to win over those who are not committed socialists?
How can we win over who voted Tory and who we need to switch to Labour in order to win the next election? How can we win over those living in seats like Stevenage, Lincoln and Motherwell who need a Labour government but who do not have one because Labour has – for too long – failed to make the argument for why a Labour government matters?
As we enter conference season, the Labour Party – and Jeremy Corbyn with his renewed mandate – have an opportunity to show those in the country and the party who are skeptical about his leadership that he has the ability and the ideas to win for Labour and for Britain.
It is vital that the last, difficult, often wasted year is put behind us if Labour is to have any chance of becoming a party of government in future.