Gordon Brown gave a magnificent speech at the UK Labour Party HQ, thus affirming his role as one of the great statesmen of British politics:
We fought for the future.
And we continue to fight unceasingly because progress is not a word we just speak but a reality we have been creating where the ambit of opportunity always expands and never contracts. And we fight for progress because we know the energy and talent of the British people are boundless whenever they are released from stereotype and allowed to soar.
We know that progressive change is possible, because our very record shows it is.
The minimum wage.
Sure Start.
The child tax credit
The shortest waiting times in NHS history.
Record exam results in schools.
More police officers than ever.
Half a million children out of poverty.
And two million more jobs than in 1997.
And on top of everything we did to change Britain for the better and forever, we can be proud that there are people alive in Africa today, children in school there who have access to health care there, because of what we have done here thousands of miles away.
So when this think of these times think on the lives saved and changed, and always remember – that New Labour’s achievements do not belong to me or to Tony Blair, but to you.
We fought and will continue to fight for our public services – services that are not something that we conjure up on our own– or that most of us can pay for by ourselves – but services that are valued because they and the realization of a true nobility that sees beyond selfish individualism, on to what can be done through our collective endeavour.
That is why we fought – and why we together we will keep fighting for justice.
So tell your children you were a part of this – but also never to stop believing that people of courage and conviction can lift our country and make it equal to its best ideals.
So to those who gave their hearts, their hard work and their votes to labour, i say thank you. I will never forget how we stood together – in happier days and through the hardest hours.
Now that the Liberal Democrats have sold out their supporters, party activists and the tens of thousands of people who voted for them to keep the Tories out, Labour is experiencing a landslide in people joining.
This morning alone, over 1000 people joined Labour, causing their servers to overload. Many of those people joining are disaffected Liberal Democrats, betrayed by the party they thought was progressive.
Tomorrow, as Gordon Brown said, “we fight on”. The struggle for a progressive future is not over now that David Cameron is in Number 10. It is now time for Labour to refresh and renew – to quickly elect a new leader and stand behind him or her while preparing for the inevitable early election.
This election showed that there is a progressive majority in Britain. Well over 50 percent of voters supported a progressive party (or at least what they thought was a progressive party in the case of the Lib Dems). The next election now creates a real opportunity for Labour to reforge its relationship with Lib Dem supporters and to build a majority.