‘Being in Opposition is pants’... Sir Keir’s cry

I WISH I could roll back the clock so Brexit hadn’t happened and Trump was not elected. We have to look at the position we’re in. There is a populist rightward move in this country, America and Europe. The French elections are coming and anybody who says the far-Right won’t get it needs to look at my prediction on Brexit and Trump.

We have been through tough divisive times in the last couple of years. Our values are being challenged like never before. We have to fight it. I’ve got to do it, you’ve all got to do it because this is the fight of our times.

The Conservatives are building a divisive version of politics based on what they think some of the 52 per cent who supported Brexit voted for.

They want an arm’s length relationship with the EU and to go off buccaneering round the world looking for undiscovered countries to get exploitative freetrade agreements with them.

Anybody who knows the phrase ‘race to the bottom’ – just wait and see what happens if that prevails.

They are saying to the 48 per cent [who voted Remain] ‘you put your cross in the wrong place, you don’t have a say in your future any more’.

The Tories are building the politics of division and should not be allowed in power for much longer.

Labour has lost two Elections and we must not lose another one. We’d be letting too many people down.

Being in opposition is pants. You can be Shadow what you like. It’s not a real job. We achieve nothing other than minor changes to what the Conservatives are doing. The only way we can change things is by being in power.

Our job is to bring this country back together. Sometimes it looks like Labour is divided. We must build a future not for the 52 per cent, or the 48 per cent, but for the 100 per cent.

If we position ourselves there, draw people together, forge a future that works for everyone, we will begin to speak again with the right voice for the whole country.