Leading the way forward for Labour

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/15/leading-the-way-forward-for-labour

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Having arrived in Westminster as newly elected Labour MPs, and after speaking to tens of thousands of voters during our election campaigns, we know how important it is for the future of our party to move forward with an agenda that best serves the everyday needs of people, families and communities, and that is prepared to challenge the notion of austerity and invest in public services. Labour must now reach out to the 5 million voters lost since 1997, and those who moved away from Labour in Scotland, renewing their hope that politics does matter and Labour is on their side.

We need a new leader who looks forward and will challenge an agenda of cuts, take on big business and will set out an alternative to austerity – not one which will draw back to the New Labour creed of the past. Labour needs a leader who is in tune with the collective aspiration of ordinary people and communities across Britain, meeting the need for secure employment paying decent wages, homes that people can call their own, strong public services back in public hands, and the guarantee of a real apprenticeship or university course with a job at the end of it. From restoring Sure Start to providing dignity and a good standard of living in retirement, these are the aspirations key to real Labour values today and will re-engage people across our country in the years to come. We look forward to engaging in the debate in the weeks ahead to secure our party as being best able to meet the challenges faced by ordinary people at this time.Richard Burgon MP (Leeds East), Louise Haigh MP (Sheffield Heeley), Harry Harpham MP (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough), Imran Hussain MP (Bradford East), Clive Lewis MP (Norwich South), Rebecca Long Bailey MP (Salford and Eccles), Rachael Maskell MP (York Central), Kate Osamor MP (Edmonton), Cat Smith MP (Lancaster and Fleetwood), Jo Stevens MP (Cardiff Central)

Is it unthinkable even to consider an alliance of those who still believe in the possibility of a decent society?

• Polly Toynbee (12 May) does well to urge caution in selecting a new leader for the Labour party. There is not only the need to think of ideas and the legacy, to clarify how Labour can relate to the changed economy. There should also be no compulsion to elect a new face and shun those who have been part of the movement in and out of power over the years.

Labour is lucky to have Harriet Harman as acting leader for the time being. She will be a good steward to hold the party together while the long process of reflection goes on. Harriet Harman has been in office through the Blair and Brown years. She has been innovative in her campaigning. She showed how brilliant she can be when she had to be at prime minister’s questions. It was a pity she did not run for leader in 2010. I hope this time around the party can be persuaded that it has a good leader already at hand. Recent recruits can hold their breath.Meghnad DesaiLabour, House of Lords

• While new faces at the top would be an advantage, the experience of the two ex-ministers in the contest would help to stabilise the party during its difficult period of readjustment. However, why don’t Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper stipulate that they will seek re-election in four years’ time? In that way members could choose whether one of them or some other up-and-coming MP should be leader for the next election.David WhitleyRainhill, Merseyside

• I cannot understand the reluctance of Tristram Hunt to throw his hat into the ring for the Labour Party leadership election. Writing a brilliant book on Friedrich Engels should not be seen as an automatic disqualification.Ivor MorganLincoln

• When the ambitious little apparatchiks come out of their woodwork and vie with each other in support of “aspiration” (greed and selfishness) and Tory values generally, is it not time for those who care about creating a society that is fair, civilised, compassionate, and protected from the power of the big corporations to agree that this terminally corrupted and aimless organisation, the Labour party, should be left to die quietly on its own? Is it not time to start again?

Is it unthinkable even to consider an alliance of those – conceivably actually a majority – who still believe in the possibility of a decent society, even if they do currently call themselves Greens or Liberals?Emeritus professor Roger CarpenterUniversity of Cambridge

• I keep wondering what Ed Miliband is making of it all as he and Justine holiday on Ibiza, and keep in touch with events surrounding the election of his successor. He must, I have decided, be thinking: what a collection of unremarkable people who want to be leader. The irony of it all is that the Labour party may come to remember Miliband with superior fondness – as a decent leader and a man of principle with interesting ideas who, very much against the odds, held a warring party together. Was he too good for and too far ahead of Labour? I am beginning to think so.David HalpinBath, Somerset

Related: Labour risks talking itself into a catastrophe | @guardianletters

• As a member of the Labour party, may I propose that Ed Miliband should stand for re-election to the leadership. From the evidence of your Election Results 2015 Supplement (9 May) there was a greater swing to the Labour party than there was to the Conservative party. The SNP also took on the mantle of the Labour party in Scotland. At our branch meeting on Tuesday, we found that our membership was up by about 20% and that now the national membership is up by 29,000. I would suggest that this is because of Ed Miliband’s leadership.

Our new members were a mix of people who were joining for the first time, people who were returning after an absence and young people in sixth-forms and at university. The greater majority of both the younger and older members were saddened that Ed Milband had resigned. Everyone felt he would be fair to all sections of society, both the aspirational and the underprivileged. Should he be re-elected, he would have the endorsement of the party and we would not have to wait until the new incumbent becomes a national figure and his or her policies known.Claire RogersHuddersfield