General Secretary David Evans's speech at Labour Party Conference

David Evans, General Secretary of the Labour Party, speaking at Labour Party Conference, said: 

Conference, in just two hundred and six days, twenty-two hours and fifteen minutes the next general election could well be over. Or you could say just over four Liz Truss governments. This general election will change the course of our country.

Either a nation saddled with a government that plays to the worst in people or a Labour government that believes in and brings out the best in people, unlocks opportunity and changes this country for good. Each day before this election is more important than the last.

How close do you feel we are to winning? As Keir often reminds us, we should never be complacent, and we’re not. But there are reasons to be confident.

Since that disastrous defeat in 2019, the progress we’ve made has been breathtaking. None of it by accident. None of it inevitable. Difficult decisions, so our finances are strong, and we can now invest more in this campaign than any before. Our ambitious policy platform in place. Our Labour movement unified in common purpose.

Our extraordinary Party staff with us in this hall today making this conference a success. Our biggest ever, dwarfing the debacle in Manchester last week. And our staff, fresh from Rutherglen and Hamilton West, now in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire fighting day and night for Labour gains.

Our 165 new parliamentary candidates who will command the confidence of the voters in the seats we need to win. Our members and volunteers, over a thousand joining in just the last week - more doors knocked this year than ever before. Our whole organisation transformed. But what gives me most confidence, is the impact this is having on voters.

The doors that once slammed shut in our faces, have started to open again. People are nervous about what the future holds for them and their family - finding it harder to hope, harder to trust. Our job is to listen, show by what we say and what we do that we are different, deserving of their trust.

I know we all read the polls – it’s hard not to. But remember the words of the late Shimon Peres - opinion polls are like perfume. Nice to smell, dangerous to swallow. We’re not swallowing any polls. Our priority is not just to persuade, but to turn support into action, poll leads into votes. And this year, we did.

As Rishi Sunak said last week, facts are facts. Well, here are some facts, Rishi. We won the local elections by the largest margin in decades. We won across the country, in every type of area, re-building coalitions of voters, we were told had been lost forever. We won by-elections. Kim Leadbeater, Paulette Hamilton, Simon Lightwood, Samantha Dixon, Andrew Western, Ashley Dalton, Keir Mather. And yes, Michael Shanks MP.

We know sadly by-elections rarely change governments, but they can change the political weather. Most voters follow politics out of the corner of one eye, but in by-elections we come squarely into view. And where we do the work, where we listen intently, we’ve turned those open doors into Labour votes. Our new campaign machine clicking into action.

But I want to mention another name. Danny Beales. Our candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. A great candidate. Not in parliament. We came up short for him by 495 votes. The Conservatives beat us.

This was painful. But pain is useful. It tells you something isn’t right and needs to be fixed. You ignore it at your peril.

A reminder that even though the Tories have given up governing, they haven’t given up campaigning. If we give them an opportunity, we will pay the price. And we should always remember that in the 123 years since Keir Hardie – the original Keir – founded our Party we’ve been in power for just 30.

That’s why in spite of the great progress of Labour governments, we still live in a country where power is concentrated, gross inequality persists, and injustice remains.

Every time we lose, it’s always the people who need a Labour government the most who pay the price.

Next year, they won’t run on their record, they’ll run away from it. They won’t run on a vision. As we saw last week, they don’t have one. They’ll search for any gap between us and the voters, drive a wedge into it and hammer that wedge every day until polling day. They will distort our policies, denigrate our leaders, and degrade our politics. But our job is not to complain. Our job is to campaign.

And we will, we’ve seen them coming. We are ready for them. We’ll hold them to account for their record of failure. And we’ll stay disciplined, not giving them the slimmest opening.

We won’t dodge difficult decisions. We’ll speak with one voice. We’ll ruthlessly focus our campaign where it counts, the battleground seats. We’ll always listen to voters. Always keeping them in our line of sight. This doesn’t mean that we blow with the wind – changing our position from one voter to the next. It means connecting our values with their lives. This Labour way is hard work. It always has been. We must listen first, earn trust next, build confidence and then persuade.

That’s why your new membership card has Clause IV, Part IV of our constitution printed on it. If anyone says we aren’t ambitious enough, read it to them in full. Through the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we achieve alone. It is this that will run through every action, every day of a Keir Starmer led Labour government. And conference, for the first time alongside this, our card bears our pledge to all voters. That Labour will always put the country first.

As we commit to this, it is a privilege to hand out the first of these cards to three of our many remarkable members who all contribute in different ways to our Party. Bayo Alaba, Louise Jones, and Ralph Ali please come to the stage.

Bayo, a former parachute regiment solider, now serves his community in Wanstead Park as a councillor. Ralph helped set up Brighton and Hove Young Labour. Louise, a former civil servant and intelligence corps officer, last week selected as our parliamentary candidate for North East Derbyshire. So how can we win in ’24? Well, how we’ve always won. How we won in 1945, 1964 and 1997, through the strength of our common endeavour.

Through the talent and dedication of members like Bayo, Louise, and Ralph. Or the four Basildon members who got up at 3am on Thursday, drove to Rutherglen, campaigned all day and then drove home again.

That’s why our campaign to win in 2024 starts today with you, our members. It’s called, ‘Win ‘24’.This month everyone will get a Win ’24 guide with all you need to play your part. Win ’24 will then extend much wider, reaching out to everyone who shares our values wants to see an end to this Tory government.

People like Michael, who I met on Friday campaigning in Tamworth. I asked how he got involved. He said his son Daniel had heard our candidate Sarah Edwards speak at his school. He’d come home buzzing, enthused, feeling he could make a difference. This then caught on to his dad, who was welcomed at the campaign centre the next day and has been knocking on doors every day since.

There are people like Michael in every seat. Our campaign will be their campaign. Open, welcoming, inclusive.

One first step will be a Win ’24 sticker you’ll receive. Put this in your car or porch. It will signal to others in your area that they are part of a growing number who want us to win in ’24.

At first you will see just a smattering, but this will spread as our campaign builds and grows into an unstoppable movement. More people speaking to voters. More donations in cash and kind. More volunteers. The Tories won’t know what has hit them. And it won’t just be our victory, it will be the British people’s victory. Voting Labour to take their country back.

So, conference, remember how you felt at 10pm on the 12 December 2019, that fateful clang of big ben before the exit poll results. I give you my word that we hear that clang of Big Ben again we will have done everything we can.

So, let’s not waste a minute. Let’s show the British people that it is only Labour that will always put the country first. Let’s beat our opponents in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire. Let’s build a campaign the Tories or the SNP won’t stand a chance against. Let’s not let down the millions counting on a Labour government. And conference, through the strength of our common endeavour, let’s win in 2024 and change this country for everyone.