The ideals of security, prosperity and respect for everyone, in every community are at the heart of Labour’s mission to lead this country, says deputy leader Angela Rayner.
Speaking at New Local’s Stronger Things event today, she said her party ‘believe that power, resources and decision-making should lie as close to people as possible, so they have the security to shape their lives’.
Every village, town and city in Britain can be ‘pulled up with the right support’, she added.
Ms Raynor told delegates at the Community Power-themed event at London’s Guildhall: ‘Empowerment means giving local people the ability to create and build their community in a way that serves them.'
She continued: ‘It means giving them the levers to nurture, strengthen and deepen the connections in neighbourhood.
‘It means giving people a real sense of control over where they live. I think once someone might have called it “taking back control” but then we’ve really seen the delivery of that…’
Ms Rayner said there was a huge amount of support from working people, families and young people to be involved in local decision making. ‘And they want to be able to choose how the money and resources in their community are spent.’
She added: ‘They know better than the Prime Minister or the so-called levelling-up secretary what the problems are and what the solutions might be.
‘If the Government seeks to put a high-rise tower block in every town when what people feel they really need is a library and community centre, they are failing. They are taking away their choices. And they are disempowering them from making the decision for their community.’
In her keynote address at the event, former United States National Security Council member Fiona Hill set the need for ‘good strong local government’ in the context of the war between Russian and Ukraine.
Ms Hill, who testified at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, is an expert on Russia. She added: ‘What we see in Russian is the danger of too much concentration of power.
‘There is no room for local autonomy. That’s all been crushed. The prognosis for Russia is bleak and we have to make sure we don’t go down that path.’