AS A Labour member, later a councillor, and currently as an MP, I have been consistent in talking about the need for the redistribution of wealth in society.

Since 2010, we have seen a very unholy trinity that has led to gross inequality.

First, 14 years of a Tory government that embarked on a devastating programme of austerity with the cuts it made leading to a deterioration of living standards. 

There certainly was a redistribution of wealth — but not in the direction that I want, or the direction tens of millions of people need.

This redistribution of wealth in favour of the richest meant extreme economic hardship for the poorest and most vulnerable in society along with the chipping away of what can loosely be termed, the “comfortable” or “middle” class.

Second, our public services have seen the asset-stripping of resources through reductions in funding. As a result, we have witnessed the unequivocal eradication of our welfare state through continuous spending cuts.

With our social structure creaking, and in many places crumbling, the result is something similar to Victorian times with substandard housing, the reemergence of illnesses that were conquered long ago and millions of people now reliant on charities to provide food and warmth.

Alongside this crippling austerity, we then had a global pandemic that led to an explosion in wealth inequality with the very richest accumulating more assets and driving up the cost of essentials like food and ultimately, housing. The commodification of the human right to shelter. 

Third, there is the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, which is far from a single issue. It is now not enough for politicians and trade unionists to fight for better wages, we also need lower bills, more genuinely affordable housing and a fundamental shift in how the economy works and crucially, who it works for.

There is no doubt that the cuts which eroded our public services and the inequalities austerity, the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis has caused helped usher in a Labour government in 2024, one with a huge majority and a mandate for change.

But as we close in on the second anniversary of coming into government, the Labour leadership have been timid at exercising the powers at their disposal in the interest of societal renewal. 

While there have been some “real Labour values” in action, with the Employment Rights Act providing the biggest uplift in workers’ rights in decades, as well as the lifting of the two-child cap, the leadership are not moving at the pace the nation requires and deserves.

And by not effectively addressing the problems faced by millions of people who are struggling to get by, then the Labour leadership are behaving like managers of continuing decline, at a time when the country needs radical transformation.  

If solutions are not forthcoming from the Westminster and Holyrood political classes, then it will be up to the trade union movement to grasp the nettle and work in partnership with those Labour MPs and MSPs who do remember what the enduring mission of the party is — that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we do alone so as to create for each of us the means to realise our potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few.

There are many Labour members inside both our parliaments who understand the need for a broader campaign encompassing our wider movement.  

We know that unions are not just fighting for their own members but for the betterment of all the working class. 

We know we are up against powerful forces that look to demonise sections of society and turn people in our movement against immigrants, people on benefits and ultimately, each other.

And we know that the Labour government must come up with a radical and transformational plan, meaning a drastically different type of government than what we have seen in these last 20 months.  

We must free ourselves from the captivity of the bond market and the economic orthodoxy of the Establishment that has conditioned people to accept that the debt crisis was caused by government overspending.  

That our deficit and debt interest payments are unmanageable. That the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. That some mythical credit card is maxxed out and that public spending is a luxury and must be curtailed as it is a drain on the economy.  

Bluntly, if we do not change course, then this is a one term Labour government.

Leadership will not only have blown a huge parliamentary majority that had the opportunity to use it to meaningfully change the country, those in charge will also be the custodians of a once great party that has had a mass exodus of members and been the government that surrenders power to the divisive and xenophobic far right of Reform UK. 

Many of the political decisions this Labour leadership have taken has alienated our core support. In the Runcorn and Helsby by election we lost votes to the left and the seat to the right.  

Without a dramatic change in course, I fear that this will be repeated en masse across the UK at the next general election.

Make no mistake, this is an existential threat to the future of the Labour Party as an electoral force and as a movement for fairness, justice and equality.  

The stakes are the highest they have ever been. We have never needed a unified and powerful labour movement more than now.

Brian Leishman is the Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth.