Extract of a speech to Cooperative Party Conference

12 September 2009, Edinburgh

We have to be alert to the threat of the return of the Tories and their Thatcherite ideology.

No one should be fooled. It has not gone away. Thatcherism is at the very core of Tory values. They have not changed. Cameron’s core values are Thatcher's.

So let no one delude themselves - David Cameron’s Tory ideology is a belief system, in complete conflict with the ideology, beliefs and values that unite the Labour and the Co-operative Parties.

Where we believed in the principles of trades unionism – they used the 80s to attack it.

Where we believed in co-operatives and mutualisation – they worked to dismantle it - systematically driving through the demutualization of the building societies into banks – the very banks that almost destroyed our economy.

These values we hold so dear are under threat again.

Just as the housewife in her hats at the kitchen sink turned out to be the Iron Lady, now we see the sensitive Dave with his right-on sensibilities turning into Cameron the ruthless right-wing reactionary. He is not hugging hoodies or huskies anymore, he is hugging right-wing Polish extremists and Nazi supporting Latvians in Brussels instead.

And here in Scotland we have our own struggle against the politics of division. A minority nationalist government hell-bent on "conflict and confrontation".

Not my words but their own civil servants. The Nationalists whinge and bleat about Westminster. They are an administration with a chip on both shoulders.

Blinded by their grievance, somehow the Labour Government’s intervention to save the Scottish banks and with it our economy, passed them by.

Meantime they indulge in their fantasy politics of a network of Scottish embassies across the world instead of squarely facing up to the worst economic crisis in a generation.

While Labour took the swift decisive action to save an economic meltdown what have Alex Salmond and the SNP been doing?

They have launched a national conversation on independence. This from a minority government with just one more seat than Labour. They have no mandate for it. The majority of the Scottish Parliament is against it. And poll after poll, time and again, shows the majority of Scots are against it.

And how has Alex Salmond and his ministers spent the last week when Diageo confirmed 900 job losses in Kilmarnock? They were discussing ludicrous plans for embassies around the world.

Alex Salmond’s programme for government is a referendum Scotland doesn’t need - on separation that Scotland doesn’t want - presented in a Bill Scotland’s parliament does not support.

This is not government, it is a campaign. Alex Salmond acts like a demagogue not a democrat. He’s not standing up for Scotland but using Scotland.

This is not government, it is a campaign. Alex Salmond acts like a demagogue not a democrat. He’s not standing up for Scotland but using Scotland.

And we also saw this week how Salmond, the SNP and civil servants are counting on a Tory government so they can bring in £2bn of cuts to public services, with 5 per cent right across the board.

So we meet in dangerous times for the principles and values we hold dear.

On the one hand the Tories wanting to break up the NHS and the welfare state with Cameron and Osborne getting ready to savage our education system and social services.

On the other, the SNP trying to break up the UK,  with our shared values, prosperity, security and culture. One of the most successful unions in the world,  founded on mutual respect and cooperation.

But conference, we must meet these challenge head on. The principles and values of the Labour and the Cooperative movement were forged in dangerous times and in the face of overwhelming odds.

The Rochdale pioneers were few in numbers and facing what must have seemed the irresistible economic pressures of the industrial revolution which threatened to crush them and their fellow workers.

Their core belief that acting together with mutual respect, discipline and organisation they could tame those forces is exactly what led to the biggest consumer coop in the world today, right here in Britain.
No one should doubt that these values, those principles are not only part of our history they are exactly what we need to resist the politics of division we face today in Scotland and in Britain.
 
We have worked together for progress, to turn Britain into a better place, a just society, a social democracy with a health service which, as you look across the Atlantic, we can see is still the envy of the world.