“We must push our new Labour government to deliver the change our communities not only need but deserve.”
By Richard Burgon MP
Labour Conference this year felt far more positive than last year’s. Then, under Starmer’s leadership, it seemed we were sliding towards a Reform Government. Welfare cuts, the failure to act on Gaza and a strategy of aping Reform made that more likely.
Starmer’s departure and Andy Burnham’s arrival have given an opportunity we must take: to reset Labour’s direction and deliver on the real Labour values needed to rebuild our support and stop Farage reaching No 10.
Andy Burnham has rightly spoken about ending 40 years of neoliberalism. That is welcome. But it cannot simply be a slogan.
It must mean a decisive shift in who owns wealth, who exercises power and whose interests come first. The job of the Labour left, trade unions and the wider movement is to turn those words into reality.
Policies passed at this conference calling for taxes on extreme wealth and a windfall tax on banks to rebuild public services, the biggest wave of public service in-sourcing for a generation, a cut in energy bills and mass council housebuilding are the kind of change we need.
These policies can rebuild Labour’s support and meet the deepening crises facing our communities.
Yet there are voices in our Party who have learnt nothing and want to carry on with welfare cuts and the wider failed political strategy. They must be opposed.
They are wrong now, just as they were wrong when they told us to keep quiet about Palestine. The very welcome shift in government policy on Israel came because Labour members and the wider solidarity movement refused to be silent. Hundreds of thousands organised and kept up the pressure. It shows that campaigning works. Organisation matters. Political pressure moves governments.
We need to bring that same determination to every struggle in the year ahead. We must push our new Labour government to deliver the change our communities not only need but deserve.
- Richard Burgon is the MP for Leeds East, the Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs and a regular contributor to Labour Outlook. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
- This piece first appeared on CLPD’s Yellow Pages on 30 September 2026.
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