Diane's speech to Labour Party Conference in Manchester

28 Sep 2010

Diane’s speech to Labour Party Conference in Manchester

“My parents immigrated to this country, from Jamaica, over 50 years ago.  They were that generation of West Indian immigrants that helped to rebuild our public services after the war, and they would have been so proud to see their daughter contend for the leadership of the one of the greatest socialist parties in Europe, and the party they loved.

But we face now George Osborne’s cuts which will be detailed in a very few weeks, and these will be cuts of a magnitude that we have not seen in our lifetime. Of course there is no question that we would have had to take tough action on the deficit, but let us be clear, and let us keep repeating, these are not inevitable cuts caused by Labour profligacy, these are ideological cuts.  It is the tories’ intention to cut back the welfare state once and for all.  Although economic issues must be front and centre, we should not allow them to marginalise other core issues that we are discussing in this debate this morning.  It is no time to step back from our commitment to equality.  Whether it is a commitment to gay marriage, whether it the rights of the disabled, or whether it is our commitment on women’s rights and equality, because these very cuts will hit women first and hit them hardest. Whether it is the cuts in child benefit and maternity benefit, benefits as a whole make up a much greater proportion of women’s income than men’s income – women will be hit hardest.  Whether it is a loss of services, or whether it is a loss of jobs, this conference will not need me to remind it that 70% of public sector workers are women and they will be hit hardest by these public sector cuts. One man’s public expenditure cut is another woman’s job loss.

On criminal justice you would expect me, as an inner city MP, to call for further and complex action on street crime.  It’s partly a criminal justice matter, it’s partly a matter of education and breakdown of families.  But I would say this as well, if the tories – if, and it’s a big if – if the tories are serious of putting fewer people in prison, we should be prepared to work with them on that.  If it’s not just a cheap excuse for cuts, we should be prepared to think about that.  We should at all times resist the temptation to attack the tories on criminal justice matters from the right because there is no future for our party in that.  On human rights and civil liberties, we should be proud of our record in government, but humble about our mistakes.  The Human Rights Act, piloted by my friend Jack Straw, was one of the great achievements of the last Labour government.  But we should never, ever have considered introducing 90 days’ detention without trial.  Because I say to conference, when it would have been used against alleged anti-terror suspects, in time, and in another government, 90 days’ detention without trial would have been used against any group which found itself on the wrong side of state power.  And I do not apologise for campaigning against it and helping to defeat it.

On the question of immigration, we have all seen the polls, the focus groups, and heard the complaints on the doorstep.  But I say this, much of the concern amongst our people around immigration is our admitted failure to build enough council houses, it’s our admitted failure to move on the question of agency workers, it’s about fear of job insecurity, it’s about job losses and it’s about workers’ rights, and we as the Labour Party should be dealing with those underlying issues.  Any other path would not be true to our values as a party.

Now, I’ve spent nearly three months on the road with Ed and Ed and David and Andy.  I’ve spent more time with them in the past three months than I have with my own family.  And it’s been an extraordinarily collegiate and comradely leadership campaign, unlike some leadership campaigns I’m old enough to remember, and I want to say this.  We’re going to hear from our new leader this afternoon, but already we’re seeing ludicrous caricatures of him in the press.  Let me just say a word on this “Red Ed” caricature, I’m a woman of the left, and let me say to you, the “Red Ed” thing is nonsense.  Ed Miliband is a gifted and charismatic leader of the mainstream centre who will lead us to victory at the next election, but will never leave this party behind.

Having come from a very collegiate leadership election, which I believe helped to build the party, and believing that it is vital that we all pull together to come back into power as quickly as possible, I have chosen to put my hat in the ring for the shadow cabinet.  I will work, as I worked in the leadership campaign, collectively and responsibly and as part of a team, but still the Diane Abbott this party knows.

I would just like to close by thanking; thanking the MPs that nominated me, a broad popular front from Phil Woolas to John McDonnell.  I would like to thank the party leadership who were so committed to having a genuinely inclusive leadership campaign that built the party.  I would like to thank my campaign team, who were all volunteers and never wavered in their commitment to getting the job done.  I would like to thank my agent Kelvin Hopkins, the member of Parliament for Luton North, whose support, and whose guidance and whose encouragement was so important. I’d like to thank my sponsoring affiliated organisations, BAME Labour, ASLEF, TSSA, and remind the conference we have policy going back 13 years on bringing the railways back into public ownership.

In closing, I would like to quote from someone who lost a leadership election 30 years ago this summer. And I believe his words cannot be improved on, in a situation like this:

“For me a few days ago this campaign came to an end, but for all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die”



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