Heidi Alexander speech to Lewisham East Labour Party 01/07/2016 Good evening everyone. I had a feeling that tonight might be a well-attended meeting and I clearly wasn t wrong. These are really difficult and challenging times at the moment: for our country, for our party and for me personally. If you had said to me three weeks ago that one of my colleagues would have been brutally murdered when going into her constituency advice surgery that the British people would have voted by a narrow margin to come out of the EU.. and that I would have resigned from the Shadow Cabinet, I wouldn t have believed you. But here we are. I want to say something about all three of these things this evening. And if I speak for slightly longer than I normally do, I hope you ll forgive me. Two weeks ago, my friend and colleague Jo Cox was murdered. Everything you read about Jo is true. She was principled, decent, strong, intelligent a small person but someone with a huge presence. I didn t know Jo before she was elected to Parliament but I had got to know her a bit over the last year and I liked her. I really liked her. And I admired her. Her work on refugees, on Syria made me sit up and listen. She is a massive loss to politics and she will be an even bigger loss to her friends and family. Since Jo was murdered lots of people have asked me does it change the way I feel about my job? Will I change the way I do my advice surgeries or how accessible I am to the public? The answer is no. I can t do my job locked away in an office. I do my job by talking to people, by listening to people and by doing my best to represent them. I will never please everyone but that s the nature of politics. But what do I want Jo s death to change? 1
I want it to change the words and actions of some politicians who frankly should know better. On the night of Jo s murder, I kept thinking about two things. The image of her children with their dad on the river Thames the day before, with their Britain Stronger In Europe flag, standing up to Nigel Farage and his warped and hateful politics. And secondly, the image of our Prime Minister in the House of Commons at PMQs in the week before the London elections. I couldn t get it out of my head. David Cameron stood at the despatch box implying that my friend Sadiq Khan was an extremist because he was Muslim. It was appalling. It was offensive, crass and divisive. A British Prime Minister being careful with his words, to avoid cries of inciting racial hatred - but whose tone was crystal clear. It was politics down in the gutter. When educated people stir up division and hatred, then don t be surprised when it stirs the mind of damaged people, who are obsessed with vile and dangerous ideologies. Jo s death was devastating. I didn t think I had any tears left to shed but it turns out I did. Everyone knew that last week s referendum was going to be close. But I think many of us believed that the Remain campaign would sneak it. We were wrong. In the last few days, I have had hundreds of emails from people in Lewisham East, asking me to support a second referendum. As much as I don t think we can rule that out, it is not the priority at the moment. When you ask people a question in a democracy, you can t stick two fingers up at them when they give you an answer you don t like. But the key point here, is that whilst the vote last week said what the majority didn t want, it didn t set out what they do want. Is it access to the Single European Market? With or without freedom of movement? 2
Are people s concerns about immigration about overall numbers or is it about having control over who comes to our country to do what? I think there is a positive case to be made for immigration. We are an ageing society. We are getting older as a country. In 30 years time, someone needs to be working and paying taxes to pay for our pensions, to care for us at home and in hospital. If we need to recruit nurses from overseas, I don t care whether an NHS nurse comes from Spain or India. Yes, I d like us to train more home-grown nurses but if someone has the skills, if they can speak good English and we need them, I want them to come. Our NHS won t function without our EU staff. Our elderly won t be looked after if EU workers have to go home. Yesterday, Theresa May said that the right of EU citizens to stay in the UK would be part of the negotiations about Brexit. Today, Michael Gove launched his campaign to be Conservative Leader. It is highly likely that one of these two people will be Prime Minister in a few months and we face the prospect of one of the most right-wing governments in a generation. That s why we need a strong opposition. That s why we need effective scrutiny and that s why the Labour Party has to get its act together. So that brings me to my resignation. I don t place the blame for last week s result at Jeremy s door alone. But as I said to him last week, if I am looking at myself in the mirror and asking whether I could have done more to dispel the lie that there would be 350 million to spend on the NHS in the event of Brexit, then I think he needs to ask himself some tough questions about describing himself as a 7.5 out of 10 when it comes to our membership of the European Union. I resigned on Sunday because over the last few weeks I had come to the conclusion that Jeremy did not have the capacity to shape the answers our country is now demanding. He is a campaigner. He is not a leader. Yes, he is principled but leadership is not just about your values and beliefs, it s about bringing people together, about compromise, about listening. 3
I asked myself whether I could hand on heart say that he was the best person to lead the Labour Party through the very choppy waters ahead and the answer was NO. Nine months ago, I accepted a job in Jeremy s Shadow Cabinet in good faith. I was honoured to be asked to be the Shadow Health Secretary. I felt a sense of liberation and excitement about the opportunities a fundamental break from the past might offer. The prospect of being able to meld together the ideas from the left of the party with those from the centre. I thought Jeremy and his team would approach it on the same terms. But I was wrong. They were wedded to simplistic policy solutions from the past, not a pragmatic approach to the future. They would never allow there to be an enemy on the left. Never could the party be outflanked by anyone with a more left wing view. The truth is the whole operation was dysfunctional. Good people in the office left. On occasion, to put it bluntly, I was undermined. The leadership struggled to organise an event, let alone an election campaign. You can t run Her Majesty's Opposition like that. And as our country looks ahead to some dark and difficult days it became clear to me that the British people deserve better. My constituents who come to my advice surgery struggling with London s housing crisis deserve better. The 80 year old man sat in A&E waiting to be seen deserves better. The young woman growing up in a town with no decent jobs and no decent opportunities deserves better. We have been failing the people the Labour Party should represent - and it is time we are honest about that. So, I had a choice. Do I carry on, living a lie, and allow good colleagues to lose their seats at the next election? Or do I say what I think? Many of you will know me well enough to know there was only one choice. 4
In some ways this decision was straightforward but in others in was the most difficult decision of my life. I was doing a job that I had grown to love. I was proud to stand up to Jeremy Hunt on junior doctors, proud to defend student nurses who are having their bursaries taken away and proud to speak up for patients who are struggling to get the care they need. I had employed two exceptionally bright and able individuals to work as my advisors. Both of whom were out of a job on Monday because of my decision. But this decision wasn t about me. It was a decision for the country and for my party and for the people I am proud to represent as your MP. Some of you may not agree with what I have done but I hope you'll agree I did it for the reasons I believed to be right. It's time for our party to look to the future, to overcome the current paralysis, and to provide the credible opposition our country so desperately needs. It's a journey that starts tonight - and I hope you'll be a part of it. 5