We believe Yvette is the only candidate who can reach out to all corners of the country
Today, council and Labour group leaders from across the country will get the chance to put questions to our four party leadership contenders at the local government hustings in Harrogate.
Ahead of this, as representatives of nations and regions across the UK, we wanted to set out why we believe Yvette Cooper is the only choice to lead Labour into the 2020 General Election.
The scale of our defeat on 7 May left all of us reeling. As councillors, many of us lost respected, talented colleagues as voters turned away from Labour. They felt unable to put their trust in us.
And turning things around, so we can make a real difference to people’s lives once again and return to government in five years’ time, is not going to be an easy task.
Firstly, we need a leader who can reach out to every corner of the country – someone who is as comfortable at a meeting with businesses as they are at the school gate, community centre or in a working men’s club.
As happy reading stories and playing with children at a primary school in Manchester as she is discussing small business growth in Rugby, or holding meetings with people on immigration in Thurrock.
Yvette was born in Scotland, but brought up in Hampshire. She represents a constituency in Yorkshire, her family is from the northern coalfields and her children go to school in London.
She is the candidate that can best reach out and appeal to those communities in every region who did not feel they could support Labour at the last election.
Yvette is also a great friend of Labour in local government and is well aware it is now the first line of defence for the communities we represent. We’ve been impressed and enthused by Yvette’s vision for and commitment to local government and greater powers at a local level.
Thirdly, we need someone with fresh ideas that meet the modern challenges we face. Yvette is the only candidate with plans to create the jobs of the future and harness the strength of the digital revolution for Britain.
She has called for a revolution in childcare, with universal free childcare for young children to give parents more choice about when to go back to work. And she has committed to making tackling child poverty a core mission of the Labour Party in the next decade.
Yvette has the determination and strength to rebuild business and bring opportunities to develop start-ups and new technology enterprises not just to our major cities, but to our towns too.
As well as demonstrating her clear vision for the future, she is not afraid to stand up and shout about our achievements as a Labour Party – and is the clear choice to lead us back to a place where we can continue to build on those and make a difference to the lives of those who need a Labour government.
Signatories:
Muhammed Afzal
Syed Enam Ahammad
Uzma Ahmed
Mohammed Aikhlaq
Azhar Ali
Mohammed Amran
Gurdial Atwal
Gurpal Atwal
George Ayre
Caroline Badley
Ralph Barker Barker
Christopher Baron
Sohail Bashir
Christine Bennett
John Bevan
Judi Billing
Elaine Blezard
Peter Box
Philip Brightmore
Ryan Case
Daniel Chapman
Tristan chatfield
Adam Clarke
Virginia Cleaver
Jon Clempner
John Clough
Jackie Connal
Alex Crawford
Yvonne Crewe
Nosheen Dad
Basharat Dad
Matthew Daniel
Mohammed Darwood
Len Davies
Deborah Davies
Angela Davies
Neil Dawson
Alex Diner
Kevin Duffy
Jayne Dunn
Gwynfor Edwards
Jennifer Evans
Adam Farrell
Richard Ferris
Julian Fulbrook
Emma Garland
Joy Garner
Martin Garner
Arthur Geary
Preet Gill
Barrie Grunewald
Inderjit Gugnani Singh
Danny Hassell
Joanne Hepworth
Cindy Hinds
Helen Hollis
Adam Hug
Mahmood Hussain
Mohammed Idrees
Zafar Iqbal
Ziaul Islam
Yvonne Jardine
Adam Jogee
Chris Kennedy
Mariam Khan
Ansar Ali Khan
James Lewis
Keith Linnecor
Adrian Lowe
Tim Lunnon
Vijay Luthra
Pat McFall
Liz McShane
Kim McGuiness
David Mellen
Jewel Miah
Peter Mitchell
Bernadette Mooney
Lyn Moore
Steve Munby
Lana Orr
John O’Shea
Lian Pate
Matthew Patrick
Mark Pengelly
Barry Phillipson
Jonathan Pryor
Marie Pye
Jennifer Raynor
Leon Reefe
Lorna Reith
Karen Rowling
Paul Sandars
Kath Scott
Rosalind Scott
Shafique Shah
Mark Shurmer
Alice Smart
Emily Spurrell
Graham Stokes
Danielle Stone
Sam Stopp
June Tandy
Sharon Taylor
Aminur Thalukdar
Alun Thomas
Ben Thomas
Phil Tye
Graham Vickery
Christopher Vobe
Neil Walshaw
Alan Wassell
Brian White
Paul Williams
Jill Wright
Charles Wright
Jonas Yonga
Julie Young
Tim Young
John Tanner
20 Responses to “120 Labour councillors: why we’re supporting Yvette Cooper for leader”
Terry Crow
My hometown So’ton has seen 2 Labour councillors resign as they couldn’t support the cuts the Labour council were carrying out. They came up for re-election this year and last (Coxford ward), standing as independents against cuts and linked to TUSC, and both won easily, pushing Labour in to 2nd place.
This sort of demonstrates the huge potential for Labour to become viable once more going back to its roots and as an anti-austerity party.
There are tens of thousands joining Labour in the hope that we get a new leader that isn’t the same old broken record, to give us a fresh start – Jeremy Corbyn represents that hope, being the only one who is tried and tested sticking to principles.
The others will be interminable disappointment, either too left for the right and too right for the left (Burnham, possibly Cooper)) or just too right, full stop (Kendall).
dnspncr
It is this simplistic idea that unemployment benefit is used by swathes of claimants to fund a slumberous lifestyle that has allowed the government to make its cuts unchallenged. Every cherry-picked fraudster that is splashed across tabloid front pages has succeeded in creating a climate of distrust; A climate in which any person dressed a certain way, if they live or work or are just passing through a working class area, will be viewed as being part of the legion of scroungers that are bleeding taxpayers dry… night workers, shift workers, home workers, part-timers, suffers of chronic illness, students, apprentices, they all help to reinforce the myth that benefit fraud is so great, so epidemic, that it is bringing the country to its knees.
And now the brainwashed public have got what they have been told they wanted. Benefits are being cut. No more handouts for these parasitical scumbags… Except it isn’t that simple is it. Hard working taxpayers whose wages do not cover the basic cost of living will also be effected. The current climate has allowed the government to end financial support for the severely disabled and go virtually unchallenged. And now we hear that the financial assistance given to cancer suffers may be slashed. Well done everyone.
Cole
And the Americans have a Prez called Barack Hussein Obama. Got elected twice and has done a pretty good job.
JuliaLarden
Interesting. 14 comments so far, and only two could really be described as pro-Cooper. Maybe the Labour councillors have got it wrong? Maybe they need to listen a bit hard to us lot: the ordinary voter who is paying our three quid to help pick the leader? What’s so special about Cooper? More of the same if you ask me. Reading these comments suggests she ain’t ‘reaching out and appealing to those who didn’t vote Labour last time.’ And as for tackling child poverty … I think that should win the nauseating hypocrisy of the year award1 Apart from a bit of nervous prevaricating over London, Lovely caring Yvette is backing the Tories in cutting the Benefit cap from 26K to 23K. This Benefit cap could drop 140K children into poverty http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/29/household-benefit-cap-plunge-40000-kids-poverty-memo. What else is the lovely Yvette doing to help the economy, well, again she’s voting with her favourite people, the Tories, for four Trident subs at an estimated cost of 100 billion.
Who’s best for leader, who really cares about poverty, who’s NOT running after the Tories, supporting their pro-austerity, pro-poverty stance, which is destroying this country: ‘Look, look I’m nearly a Tory, won’t you vote for me now?’ Jeremy Corbyn, that’s who. As for experience, Jeremy Corbyn has worked tirelessly for genuine Labour Party, genuine left-wing causes for over thirty years, and he is very well informed on the real problems facing this country. He’s old, he’s a dinosaur? Cooper’s a dinosaur in her outdated new-Labour lovin’ stance. Corbyn just might turn out to be the tyrannosaurus rex that eats these other useless, ideas-bankrupt, anodyne right-wing Labour leader candidates up! So come on people, tell these yesterday’s people Labour councillors where they get off: Sign up and back Corbyn now: https://www.facebook.com/JeremyCorbyn4Leader
Cole
And Cooper is clearly more competent than the untested and opportunist Kendall. And it’s always difficult to see opposition leaders as PMs till they get into No 10.