Labour has changed. After years when the party has often seemed timid, limited and lacking sufficient ideas and ambition to rise to the challenges facing Britain, I’m proud to have used this contest to set out a radical vision for the future of our party and our country.

That vision includes, at last, an industrial and investment strategy for Britain: a £200bn Keynesian New Deal to rebuild our social and physical infrastructure; a revolution in workers’ rights to turn Britain into a world-leading place to work; a genuine living wage for all; and fair taxation, including a wealth tax to restore our NHS with costed spending increases. I have also made a clear case for Britain staying in the European Union.

Alongside this vision, it’s also my duty to tell the hard truths about the present, desperate state of our party.

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Labour has never looked further from government, and the blame for that ultimately lies at Jeremy Corbyn’s door. It is clear that Jeremy’s appeal, and the appeal of his protest politics, is in inverse proportion to its credibility and attractiveness with voters. The rallies may make for fabulous tweets, but we kid ourselves if we think they show a mass movement in the country.

Jeremy has brought enthusiasm to many and helped us rediscover a sense of radicalism. However, our popularity with the electorate is in steep decline and Jeremy’s complacency about this is unforgivable. His supporters, such as Diane Abbott, might feel it’s “Westminster-centric” to worry about winning, but securing democratic power is what Labour was set up to do.

If we give up on winning we will become accomplices to every Tory cut and will condemn Britain to a decade of doom Owen Smith

Knowingly marching off to electoral irrelevance is a gross betrayal of the people who all Labour members and supporters – new and longstanding – came into politics to help. If we give up on winning the next election, or falsely claim to be on course to win it, we become accomplices to every Tory cut and will condemn Britain to a decade of doom.

Our party is down to 27% in the polls, that would mean one million fewer votes than in 2015. Yet, faced with electoral oblivion, Jeremy surrounds himself with people who agree with him, rather than reach out to the whole country. Too often he seems content to be leader of his own fan club rather than the next prime minister, defining himself against his own party instead of the Tories. If we carry on like this, there will be a generation of children only knowing a Tory government. It happened in the 1980s, and I’m in this contest to stop that happening again.

It’s Labour or nothing for me. I’ve no time for splits, nor do I share the views of some on the hard left – such as John McDonnell – who see Labour as a “vehicle”. It’s because I am so wedded to Labour and the achievements we have secured that I am compelled to expose this mortal danger. It’s our duty to preserve, for future generations, our party as a credible, united, electable force. Jeremy is failing to do that.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A vote for me represents a chance to save Labour from terminal decline and put us back on course to government. Our country is desperate for a strong Labour party to hold the Tories to account and deliver a Labour programme in 2020, replacing Tory austerity with a plan for prosperity.

If Labour members and supporters put their faith in me, I will deliver that. The country is relying on us and we cannot let them down.

Owen Smith has been the Labour MP for Pontypridd since 2010