A year ago, Labour started a journey that changed the direction of the party. When we were fighting for Jeremy Corbyn to reach the ballot paper, the initial aim was to force a debate and to push ideas which were being laughed out of the political mainstream. Now, one year later, we have a Labour leadership contest in which both candidates are expressing core Labour values on public ownership, progressive taxation and workers’ rights in a way that hadn’t been seen for 40 years.

It’s easy to dismiss Corbyn as an experiment, a blip, or a relic of a past age. But if you looked closely enough, you would have seen the signs pointing inevitably toward his election.

The New Labour project in which most politicians were schooled had run out of ideas – especially after the crisis in the financial sector forced a polarisation between those who accepted neoliberal economics and those who did not.

This time last year, we talked about a new politics. Those politics are under construction, but they are in motion. Under Corbyn, and with the movement that has formed behind him, we have won back Bristol and London, increased our majority in every by-election, and gone from seven points behind at the last general election to one point ahead at this May’s local elections. Is this enough? Simply put, no it is not. But it is a start and a base we can build upon.

In policy terms, too, the Corbyn project looks like the future more and more every day. We know growing technological developments in artificial intelligence, automation and big data mean that democratic socialism in the 21st century must adapt to such a rapidly changing world. Whether through the introduction of a Universal Basic Income, or through developing ways to ensure that the self-employed, entrepreneurs and fledgling start-up companies have the support they need to take chances and innovate, the £500bn investment programme proposed by Corbyn responds to the challenges we will inevitably have to face.

This programme aims to radically transform the economy, create a million new jobs and a million new homes, at least half of them social housing.

Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Show all 8 1 /8 Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith clash at a leadership hustings in Gateshead, where Mr Smith was scarcely able to answer a question without being booed by Mr Corbyn’s supporters PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith “Jeremy himself admitted he was seven out of 10 in terms of his faith in the European Union. He said it,” said Mr Smith during his second live debate with Jeremy Corbyn Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Ballot papers are currently due to be sent out on 22 August and returned a month later, with the result being announced at a special Labour conference on 24 September Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Jeremy Corbyn supporters cheer and wave placards as the Labour Leader addresses thousands of supporters in in Liverpool, England Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour Party leadership candidate Owen Smith poses for a picture with supporters during a picnic for young members in London Fields, Hackney in London Getty Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith The Labour leader has a spring in his step at a leadership rally in Sunderland Screenshot Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Labour leadership contender Owen Smith delivers a speech at the Open University in Milton Keynes, where he promised to reverse Conservative cuts set to leave millions of low paid workers thousands of pounds a year worse off PA Labour leadership contest: Jeremy Corbyn vs Owen Smith Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has urged Owen Smith to distance himself from those saying they want to split the Labour party Getty

Additionally, we want to generate 65 per cent of Britain’s electricity with renewables by 2030, rising to 85 per cent as technology improves, creating 200,000 jobs in wind power alone, as well as local energy co-operatives all over the country. Those million homes will all be carbon neutral homes, and we’ll insulate 4m existing ones. We won’t just ban zero hours’ contracts – we’ll create a whole new generation of high-tech, highly skilled, highly paid jobs.

So many of my colleagues in parliament speak about the over-riding importance of a Labour government, as soon as possible, and of almost any stripe. If they mean what they say – and I’m certain most of them do – then they will, ultimately, fall in behind Jeremy Corbyn if he wins. You may not agree with his every decision, or his every policy – but what the new politics represents is our best, maybe only, hope of returning to power.