The realists are getting radical

Pablo John says the Mainstream member consultation policy ideas will become the driving force of change

Earlier this year, Mainstream did something unusual for a Labour network. We stopped talking about what we thought the party should believe, and we asked our members to decide. Hundreds of Labour members, councillors, trade unionists and campaigners gathered for our first policy assembly to agree on the values that will shape everything we do.

What came out of that (virtual!) room surprised even the organisers. There was extraordinary consensus; the energy was mostly spent discovering how much we share. The country needs a big change; radicalism excites people, it gives them permission to be ambitious for the first time in a long time. But values are just poetry without policy, so we asked our members to vote on the issues that should lead our work. The results were fairer tax, housing, democratic ownership and a well-being economy.

Fairer tax wasn’t a surprise. 91% of Labour members already support taxing the wealth of the richest in our society, according to our polling – I’d argue that’s the definition of mainstream. Excessive wealth hoarding is a political choice: when children go hungry while billionaires pay lower effective tax rates than nurses, that means the system is rigged. Fairer tax is the only way to unrig it, making sure everyone has enough to live on, that public services are funded and that the burden falls where it belongs. Fair tax is the ultimate mechanism of a compassionate country.

Then, housing, the most visceral, personal issue we are grappling with, where rents swallow entire wages, where buying a home becomes a fantasy for young people, and the humiliation of homelessness in one of the richest countries on earth. Treating housing like an investment vehicle has poisoned communities and stolen security from a generation. The answer is to go further than tinkering with planning rules, including a wholesale commitment to social housing, rent controls and a public right to a secure, affordable home.

And democratic ownership. It’s well past time we took key utilities and services out of the hands of distant shareholders, putting them under public control. Something better than the historic nationalisation of monolithic boards and no accountability, something genuinely democratic. We need to move past water companies that dump sewage while paying dividends, energy firms that profiteer from a crisis and railways that treat passengers as annoyances. It’s time to return these services to democratic control, open them to public oversight, scrutiny and involvement, letting workers have a say in how their own lives are run.

Finally, a well-being economy – growth for its own sake is a fool’s game, what matters is whether the economy actually makes people’s lives better, more equal and more sustainable. Labour governments must fundamentally change the balance of ownership so wealth isn’t hoarded by a few but shared across the many. Citizen wealth funds are the way to do it, with every citizen holding a stake in the country’s success, with collective assets like renewable energy, public land and infrastructure generating returns that flow back to communities. The economy should serve human flourishing through a concrete, investable, democratic programme.

These four priorities are just a fraction of the values our assembly nailed down – behind a broader narrative around honouring Labour’s democratic socialist roots, a confident critique of capitalism, a commitment to reducing inequality, valuing public services, good work, climate action, integrity, pluralism – I could go on! All of it is bound together by the belief that politics should serve ordinary people.

So what happens now? Mainstream will campaign on these four priorities as a programme. We’ll organise in constituencies, push motions at conference and hold the government to account when it drifts to the right. Our members have spoken.