Together we can build a new future for Ipswich

For the Labour Party, this week marked an unhappy anniversary. It has been four years since we suffered our worst election defeat in nearly 100 years, with the Conservatives able to extend their miserable rule for another half a decade. The 2019 General Election was a clear message to the Labour Party. We had to change, and we have. While there is still a lot of hard work ahead of us, we are now ready to change our town, and our country, too. However, while the polls are healthy, and historic by-election victories show Labour are winning back voters’ trust, there is absolutely no complacency. The polls will be a distant memory if we don’t receive the votes we need to win seats like Ipswich next year. 2023’s by-election victories will always remain remarkable, but will offer little comfort if we fail to form a government after the General Election in 2024. At a local level, I know how devastating opposition can be. While we managed to win some crucial mitigations, overwhelming Conservative numbers at Suffolk County Council meant brutal cuts to things like children’s centres, health visitors and school transport couldn’t be prevented. Nationally, the Conservatives’ calamitous mini-budget which tanked our economy was unstoppable due to their enormous majority, and it came off the back of a decade of low growth, falling wages, rising taxes and crumbling public services after successive Conservative victories at the ballot box. The price is there for all to see. More than 300,000 people in England, including nearly 140,000 children, are set to spend Christmas without a home this year, an increase of 14 per cent compared to last year. Waiting lists are at a record high. Schools are crumbling. The cost of living crisis continues to be so painful for so many. Any of these problems on their own would be disastrous, but together, they paint a picture of Britain where nothing works and things simply can’t get better. To compound the sense that our country is in decline, people have become tired of entitled politicians blaming everyone else for their own failings. Exhausted by constant division. Fed up of government by gimmick. That’s why next year, at the General Election, there’s something much deeper at stake than usual. It is time for leadership, service and responsibility, both on a local and a national level. It is time to bring people and communities together, and to see difference as a strength, not an opportunity to drive us further apart. It is time for ambition and hope, underpinned with real substance and hard work. When you look at Ipswich’s diverse range of political beliefs, there is a reason we are regarded as a bellwether seat! There are conservatives who are thinking of voting Labour for the first time or have only occasionally trusted us before. There are many people in town who will have always voted Labour, yet many who have never and will never do so too. Some people vote for the Liberal Democrats locally, but will lend their vote to another party nationally. And there are some people who will be tempted to roll the dice with a minor party, or even not vote at all. However you vote, I know that we retain shared values and that we all want Ipswich to succeed. If I am privileged to be elected as the MP for Ipswich, I won’t write you off because of party political differences, or fall out over a single issue. I will be there to serve you and our whole town, and the Labour Party is ready to serve our country, once again. Together, we can build a new future for Ipswich.