Go back to your constituencies and prepare for opposition

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

A few moments ago the leadership election trapdoor slammed shut. Nearly four months of nominations, campaigning, media appearances, letters, emails and furious (endlessly partisan) tweeting have come to an end. Put down your overheated mobile phone, stop texting your wavering friends, remove your twibbon, and step back outside into the sunshine.

Now all that we can do is sit and wait until Saturday afternoon when the result is announced. Whoever is victorious on Saturday though, the party has come out of this race fitter, stronger, and with a greater sense of purpose than we had going into it. Now it’s time for us to knuckle down and concentrate our time, and our energies, on opposition.

The work of opposition is often dull and depressing. The next five years will certainly be relentless, hard and often brutal. Coalition cuts to public services will take hold, and the people who we care about most will be the first (and hardest) hit. The only way to deal with being in opposition effectively, as a party, is to get organised. I’ve already written about the party’s excellent Project Game Plan, which should give activists the tools they need to succeed, but this can be added to a set of incredibly effective organisational machines that we already have within the party – the leadership campaigns.

If you’ve volunteered on one of the leadership campaigns, then you’ve already got all of the skills to help Labour in opposition. Take the enthusiasm and passion that you have for your candidate, and give it to the Labour Party. Exchange the time you have spent cheering for your candidate online and instead critique the coalition’s policies on education, health and welfare. Replace the phone banking you’ve done for your candidate for phone banking with the party – and get out there on the doorstep too. Help to be the change you wanted to see in the party – whoever wins.

This campaign has absorbed so much of the time and energy of so many people within the party. It has been long, but ultimately worthwhile. We have had a chance to see not only what the candidates are made of, but also what we, the Labour Party, are made of. This party is united (as we’ll prove on Saturday), and we didn’t tear ourselves apart like some in the media expected/wanted us to.

Now it’s time to train our fire on those who are most deserving, this coalition government. Let’s take the fight to them, starting today. And let’s do it together – united.