David Miliband MP sent an e-mail to all of his supporters earlier this week. In it, he said:
I am keen Ed has a free hand but also an open field to lead our party. I genuinely feared distracting and destructive attempts would be made to find division where there is none to the detriment of the party's cause.
The result of the contest gives me a chance to recharge my political and intellectual batteries to be of greater service to the party and the country. I have spent 16 years in or around the top of politics in one capacity or another. There's a world out there that I have touched but about which I want to know more - from education to the environment to foreign policy.
I think I can best make a contribution to the election and success of the next Labour government under Ed's leadership by devoting myself to understanding better the new challenges and new ideas and figuring out how to put our values into practice. The new politics of community organising that we started with the Movement for Change has excited me greatly and I want to develop that potential for the good of the whole party.
In addition to David's ongoing commitment, Ed Miliband, the new Labour Party leader, committed to carrying on the work of Movement for Change. At an Assembly on Tuesday 28th September at Labour Party Conference, Ed said:
David fought an exceptional campaign, but I think the most exceptional thing he did was the initiative around the Movement for Change.
We can build on it up and down the country and it's got to be mainstreamed.
Ed also agreed to go on the Movement for Change training.
Responding to Future Leader Kev Peel's question of whether or not he would meet with the Movement for Change Project Board, Ed replied:
I'll definitely meet with you.
You can see some videos of the event taken by Future Leaders here.
In the mean time, while we plan with Ed and the party how we take the Movement for Change forward, we will be posting some of the stories of Future Leaders from around the country. Also, we want to house as many of those stories as possible on this blog. So if you have a story of how you have used the Movement for Change training in your community, e-mail it to us as m4cblog@gmail.com.
M4C Team.
Can we have a Movement 4 Change Twibbon please?
ReplyDeleteWho is choosing these 'Future Leaders'? It seems that there is a degree of self-selection. Invalid in my opinion. Communities choose their own leaders!
ReplyDeleteJoan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your question.
We are not choosing any leaders. Future Leaders are simply the people who signed up to the Movement for Change, attended the training and began using the techniques to build in their communities. That is why they are leaders. We were not selecting the people who came to the training because, as you said, that would be invalid.
And this process was open to all, regardless of which candidates they supported. It wasn't even exclusively for Labour Party members and we did train a lot of people who were yet to become members.
Hope this clears that up for you.
M4C Team