Last Thursday I met with Nottingham South Labour Party members to explain my recent decision to resign from Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.
Most members weren't able to attend that meeting and many constituents have also been in touch to ask me to explain why I felt it necessary to resign.
With this in mind I thought it would be helpful to reproduce my speech here:
Thank you Chair and thank you all for coming to this evening’s meeting.
I want to talk tonight about the Referendum, and what followed.
Some of you have joined the Party in the last year, specifically because of Jeremy Corbyn: inspired by his values and principles and because he cares about fighting poverty and inequality, about offering hope for the future.
I share those values and principles. I always have, and I hope you have always felt welcome in Labour.
We're here in the brand new Hopecentre. I supported Hope Church when this centre was just an idea. And I've seen this community turn an idea into a reality.
If you know Clifton, you'll know how it has been transformed over the past 8 years. The A453, the tram and the solid wall insulation. Fuel poverty in Clifton South has more than halved as a result of Labour action. Down from from 20.2% in 2010 to 9.4% last year.
We did that by working together and campaigning together, working with the people in this community. We offered hope that things could be better and they are.
There's a long way to go.
There are still huge problems and challenges to address in Clifton, in Nottingham South and across the country. But Labour in power makes a real difference to people facing inequality and poverty - and we could do so much more if we weren't just in power locally but nationally too.
Now let me turn specifically to recent events.
It’s hard to imagine a more turbulent or disturbing 4 weeks in politics.
Just 4 weeks ago, in the midst of a divisive and frankly xenophobic Referendum campaign, my friend and colleague Jo Cox was brutally murdered in the street on the way to her advice surgery. Murdered for standing up for her beliefs and speaking up for what is right.
3 weeks ago, although Nottingham South voted to remain, people in our city, and especially in this community, voted to leave the EU. To turn their backs on our friends and neighbours in Europe.
20 days ago, David Cameron announced that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister and we faced the prospect of a General Election, against a Party led by some of the most right wing Tories ever, and with UKIP buoyed by huge Leave votes in our Labour heartlands, including in places like Clifton.
And 18 days ago, after 9 months serving in Jeremy’s Shadow Cabinet, I resigned.
You all know that last summer I didn't nominate Jeremy, and I didn't vote for him.
I know that Nottingham South did nominate him and that overwhelmingly members across the country did vote for him.
So when he asked me to serve I said yes.
I wanted to make it work and I promise you, I tried to make it work.
In the 9 months I spent in the Shadow Cabinet I never briefed against Jeremy.
I never tweeted what was happening in Shadow Cabinet meetings or spoke to journalists about our private discussions
Whenever challenged, I defended our Party Leader.
I hope you all know that I work hard for my constituents in Nottingham South
I worked just as diligently in the Shadow Cabinet.
Leading the Labour Transport team
Co-Chairing Labour’sTransport Policy Commission.
Holding the Government to account at the dispatch box.
Going on national and local media to speak for Labour, even when it was difficult.
Being a part of the collective decision making in Shadow Cabinet, setting a direction for the PLP in Parliament on challenging issues.
Many of you will know that I'm passionate about transport.
I've been in the Labour Transport Team for almost 5 years.
Becoming Shadow Transport Secretary was my dream job, a huge privilege and I'm extremely proud of the work our team did.
It was fantastic to address our Party Conference last September and be able to pledge that a Labour Government would bring the railways back into public ownership.
That was a policy that would make a real difference to passengers, and I believe in it wholeheartedly.
It was brilliant when we forced the Government to u-turn on their plans to cancel the electrification of the Midland Main Line
And I was looking forward to speaking in the Bus Services Bill, in favour of re-regulating bus services and standing up for outstanding Municipal bus companies like NCT.
So I'd like you to imagine how I felt when, even though I was trying my hardest, it became impossible for me to do my job in the Shadow Cabinet.
Some people have asked me for examples of why that was the case, and I wanted to explain tonight what’s happened over the last nine months as fully as I can.
Rail fares go up once a year on 2 January.
It's the perfect opportunity to show that this Tory Government aren't on the side of working people.
Commuters who've seen their season tickets go up by more than 26% since 2010. Some of whom are paying more for their rail fares than their mortgage. Four, five even six thousand pounds a year.
People who live in Essex and on the Kent coast, in suburbs and small towns, in marginal seats. Many of them are not Labour voters, but they are the people we need to win over.
It is a huge date in the political calendar every year.
We had the opportunity not just to criticise the Government, but to show we had a real Labour alternative. Our flagship policy. One that unites our party.
My staff spent weeks preparing briefing materials for MPs and constituency parties across the country. Trawling through mountains of rail fare information to provide examples of the season tickets that had risen the most and that cost the most. Examples for every MP and CLP.
Like Nottingham to Derby – where the cost of an annual season ticket has risen by almost 30% since 2010.
And over the Christmas period we were listening in to Network Rail conference calls, monitoring the engineering works. Several calls every day including Christmas Day and Boxing Day, even New Years Eve.
On 4 January – a cold dark Monday morning – I was at Kings Cross at 7am doing Radio 5 and BBC TV.
Standing with Jeremy and the Rail Union General Secretaries for the media photocall. It was a crucial day in the Party’s media grid.
And all across the country local party activists were outside railway stations in the cold and the dark, leafleting commuters with the materials we’d prepared. Armed with the briefings and statistics.
Incredibly, Jeremy launched a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle on the same day.
This was the reshuffle that had been talked about since the Syria vote a month earlier. A vote where I supported Jeremy’s position.
The reshuffle that meant all our staff spent Christmas not knowing whether they'd have a job by the New Year.
By mid-afternoon the press were camped outside the Leader's office. They were there for the next 3 days.
It knocked all the coverage of the rail fare rise and our public ownership policy off every news channel and every front page.
I respect completely Jeremy’s right to reshuffle his top team. But why then?
It was unnecessary and it was incompetent.
It let me down, it let my staff down but most of all it let down the Labour campaigners and trade union members, people like you, who had given up their time to go out campaigning for us that morning.
Now I’d ask you to imagine how you would you feel if you agreed something with your boss but he then did something completely different.
Something that undermined you.
Something they hadn't even had the courtesy to tell you about.
http://www.liliangreenwood.co.uk/lilian_s_speech_to_nottingham_south_labour_party_members
