THE Scottish Labour Party meets this weekend in the great city of Dundee. 

A year ago the party was sitting at 14 per cent in the opinion polls and in third place in Scotland, while across Britain things were looking grim. 

Theresa May, sensing — very wrongly as it turned out — Labour’s weakness and believing the hype her advisers had created about her apparent strength in the country called a general election in an attempt to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations. 

Well that went well, didn’t it. An outstanding Labour manifesto captured the imagination, particularly of young people, and a vibrant, dynamic campaign led by Jeremy Corbyn delivered a result that defied every critic and commentator, leaving May deprived of her majority and at the mercy of her own extremists and the DUP bought off with £1 billion of barrelled pork.

Who could have imagined this time last year that only a few months later, the PLP, with seven Scottish MPs, would give Corbyn a standing ovation as he took his front-bench seat in the newly convened parliament. 

Since then Labour has continued to rise in the polls. We are primed and ready to win the next general election and, with each passing day, the Labour team look like a Cabinet in waiting.  

In Scotland, we have doubled our numbers in the polls from this time last year. It is increasingly clear that the positive vision for Scotland proposed by Corbyn and Richard Leonard is attracting support. 

At his first conference as leader, Leonard will be setting out the radical programme he won a mandate for during his successful leadership campaign. Make no mistake these are policies that will:

• Reinvigorate our economy with a clear objective of full employment.
• Bring about a renaissance in public ownership
• Strengthen our rights at work
• Re-empower local government
• End rough sleeping and build houses for our young people and families
• Address the appalling and growing health inequality across our country
• Close the educational attainment gap and provide opportunities for our young people
• And crucially care for and look after our older friends and relatives in their later years. 

Now that is an agenda every Labour member can get behind and campaign on over the coming weeks and months. 

Brexit is of course the issue of our times. It dominates the news channels and the print media, with political commentators fixated on every twist and turn.

Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer and Lesley Laird have all set out the six tests that labour will apply to any Brexit deal.

• It must produce a strong collaborative relationship with the EU where we work with our friends and colleagues in countries across the Continent to improve the lives of working people
• It must secure the benefits of the single market and customs union, protecting jobs and a prosperous future for Scottish businesses and their workforces 
• It must have a fair and transparent immigration system, ending the exploitation of workers, wherever they come from
• It must maintain all rights and protections enjoyed by people currently, including rights over employment, health and safety, the environment etc
• It must protect our national security and have a system of cross-border policing to ensure that dangerous and organised crime is tackled internationally
• It must protect the interests of the working people of Scotland at all times, putting the national interest above party politics.

Labour will NOT support any deal that fails to meet these tests. This a sensible and pragmatic approach that is endorsed by Scottish Labour MPs, by our leader Leonard and, I hope, by our conference tomorrow.

Scottish Labour is on the way back. We have a lot of hard work to do and we are not afraid of the challenge. This week in Dundee let’s accelerate that process, working together for the many not the few.

Neil Findlay is Labour MSP for Lothian.