November’s report by the United Nations’ rapporteur on poverty and human rights should have been the final warning for this government. “Not just a disgrace, but a social calamity, and an economic disaster” was the view of Philip Alston, citing a “punitive, mean-spirited, and callous approach.” With homelessness more than doubling between 2010 and 2017, the reality of rough sleeping and temporary accommodation ought to make government ministers ashamed at this time of year more than any other. How many times do the Tories need telling about the human suffering they have inflicted on our society? Last year they were told to investigate 10,000 additional deaths in the first seven weeks of 2018, while hundreds of thousands waited in corridors and ambulances as the system creaked under the pressure of deliberate, callous underfunding. And despite the additional NHS funding in the longer term — “simply not enough” to address the fundamental challenges, according to the Health Foundation — I fear that the government’s failure to deal with the immediate pressures could mean yet another winter crisis in the next few months. Austerity was always doomed to fail, but even the Conservatives can no longer paper over the cracks or blame everything on its usual scapegoats: the last Labour government or scroungers or immigrants. Yet, in the face of people’s growing revulsion at the damage it is doing to our social fabric, the government staggers on — or at least it did at the time of writing. Clinging to office but not in power, riven with the contradictory demands of international capital and nationalism, we have seen in recent months a quite unprecedented loss of grip. A government forced to accept wholesale opposition amendments to its flagship finance bill is not one which has the confidence even of parliament, let alone the confidence of an electorate shocked at the self-indulgent playing out of Conservative divisions on the world stage.

Labour’s Alternative Europe has not always been a subject for unanimity on the left, of course. We only have to look through past issues of Tribune to find opposition to EEC membership in the 1970s and support for a more pro-European position in the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike the Conservatives, however, we can truly speak for Labour voters and constituencies across the country if we remain united against Theresa May’s attempts to bounce the UK into a bad Brexit deal. Labour has been clear that if the government couldn’t get support for their deal, they should stand aside and call a general election to allow us to negotiate not just a transition deal but a collaborative future with Europe beyond that. But of course, while Europe may be the most urgent question at the moment, it isn’t our only focus, as we build on last year’s manifesto and develop it further towards the next election and the transformative socialist government that we’re all fighting for. Angela Rayner has laid the foundations for the mould-breaking National Education Service, which will bring education back under local democratic control by ending academy expansion and making good on our manifesto commitment to universal free childcare. As Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Margaret Greenwood has pledged an end to benefit sanctions and copper-fastened our party’s commitment to halt the roll-out of Universal Credit. Rebecca Long-Bailey announced our commitment to a net zero emissions target by 2050, meaning that under a Labour government the UK would be on track to be the only developed country outside of Scandinavia to meet our international obligations, and we would do so while creating 400,000 well-paid green jobs in the process. At conference I called for a new international settlement to address the challenges of international inequality, climate change, and the threat of trade wars. I also launched a consultation on the democratic management of public services, including detailed plans for public management of the water sector. We laid out radical plans to, yes, give workers seats on company boards but, more than that, part-ownership of big companies through Inclusive Ownership Funds, which will own 10 per cent of big companies after two terms of a Labour government. The reality is that we cannot deliver the transformational change we want unless we take control of the key operations that we depend upon. In the hands of workers, customers, and elected representatives, water companies can be a source of investment and future-planning, as well as reducing bills by getting rid of enormous dividends. With a nationally-owned grid infrastructure, we can — and will — transform our energy sector to provide the scale and the stable supply of low-carbon heat and light that we need for the long term. With a publicly-owned rail system and municipal bus companies we can build capacity and transition to a sustainable transport public system for the whole country. A state-backed National Investment Bank, alongside regional development banks, will do what the private sector has failed to do: invest across the UK to deliver good jobs, thriving communities, and a more productive economy.