A chance to serve -that is all we ask. "We owe a debt of inspiration to John Smith, and a debt of honour to Neil Kinnock. I intend to repay them both in full. All I ask is the chance to serve. And at the time of the next election there will be just one thousand days until the new millennium, a thousand days to prepare for a thousand years.
As a father, as a leader, as a member of the human family, I ask this question of Britain's future. We live in an era of extraordinary, revolutionary change at work, at home, through technology, through the million marvels of modern science. The possibilities are exciting. But its challenge is clear. How do we create in Britain a new age of achievement in which all of the people -not just a few but all of the people- can share?
Is that not the essence of what we believe? Each generation doing better than the last, the heritage of hope passed from parents to their children -now, for the first time in this generation, at risk under this Conservative government. Our task is to restore that hope, to build a new age of achievement in a new and different world.
Today we compete in the era of global markets, and I say this to our Conservative opponents. There is no future for Britain as a low-wage, low-skill, low-technology economy. We will compete on the basis of quality or not at all. This means a stable economy, long-term investment, the enterprise of our people set free.
Leading Britain into an age of achievement means Britain leading in Europe, and for business and for Britain we will build that new, constructive relationship with our European partners. Let me make one thing plain. I will not scrap Britain's veto in Europe. Our options on a single currency should remain open, to be determined according to our national interest. Any change will only come with the full consent of the people. But make no mistake: leave Europe, or retreat to its sidelines, as these Tories want to do, and this country will lose its influence and its inward investment. It would be a disaster for jobs and for industry. The Tories may glory in perpetual isolation but I say that is not standing up for Britain; that is a betrayal of British interests.
With a good relationship in Europe we can get more out of it. Britain has the Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 1998. One of our key priorities in that Presidency will be the completion of the single market. Today, even in opposition, I set a deadline -June 1998, the end of the British Presidency, for the completion of the single market in Europe. And I will begin discussions with other European leaders now so that we can get ready to meet that deadline. New opportunities for our firms and new jobs for our people. Our aim is that by the end of the first term of a new Labour government in gas and electricity, in telecommunications, in public procurement, in financial services, we will have a genuine single market in Europe open to British goods and services. That is the way to get the best out of Europe for Britain.
And a new age of achievement in our industry, too. Support for manufacturing as well as for services; support for research and development, for science and engineering; and a new era of industrial relations in Britain. There will be fairness, not favours, for employers and employees alike. The Labour government today is not the political arm of anyone other than the British people. But let us settle these arguments about industrial laws once and for good. There will be no return to the 70s, but there should and there will be basic civil rights for all at work legislated on early in a Labour government.
These are the foundations of this new age of achievement. And for all our people it can be made a reality. There is only one lasting route to higher living standards, better wages, more secure jobs in today's world. We will win by our brains and our skills or not at all. In Britain we are still in the 30-30-40 economy: 30 per cent do very well, 30 per cent just getting by, 40 per cent struggling or worse.
When the Tories talk about the spirit of enterprise they mean a few self-made millionaires. Well, best of luck to them. But there should be a spirit of enterprise and achievement on the shop floor, in the office as well: in the 16 year-old who starts as an office girl with the realistic chance of ending up as the office manager; in the young graduate with the confidence to take initiatives; in the secretary who takes time out to learn a new language and comes back to search for a new and better job. These people have enterprise within them. They have talent and potential within them. Ask me my three main priorities for government and I tell you: education, education and education.
Education should not be about wealth. And the age of achievement will be built on the new technology. Last year I announced an agreement with British Telecom to cable up schools, colleges, universities, libraries to the information superhighway for free. To their credit, the cable companies have followed suit. That was an historic beginning. But it was only a beginning. Today we go further. The cable industry and British Telecom have now given us a commitment to keep costs to our schools for access to the Internet and superhighway as low and as predictable as possible, and they have given a commitment to achieve real reductions in prices for those schools.
Imagine Britain a leading player in Europe once more, a force for good promoting democracy and civil rights and free trade between nations, dealing with the debt burden at the heart of any strategy for overseas development, helping fashion the United Nations and the institutions of international co-operation for a new world.
This is my covenant with the British people. Judge me upon it. The buck stops here. For the future, not the past, for the many, not the few, for trust, not betrayal, for the age of achievement, not the age of decline -that is my covenant with the British people.
We are not a sect or a cult. We are part of the broad movement of human progress, the marriage of ambition with justice, the constant striving of the human spirit to do better, to be better. It is that which separates us from the Conservatives. And it was there long ago, there even when the ancient prophets of the Old Testament first pleaded the cause of the marginal, the powerless, the disenfranchised. It was there when Wilberforce fought the slave trade against the vested interests of Tory money. It was there when the trade union movement began as an instrument against abuse in the work place. It was there when the young Jack Jones went to fight in the Spanish civil war for another people’s freedom out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart. It was there when we said, having conquered the evil of Hitler, that the welfare state must be built so that the destitution of the 30s never returned to our country. And it is here now, in this room, as we build around the Labour Party the new force for progress in British politics to bring in the new age of achievement for all our people. A thousand days -yes- to prepare for that thousand years.
We have the programme. We have the people to make decent change in our country. Let us call our nation now to its destiny. Let us lead it to our new age of achievement and build for us, for our children, their children, a Britain -a Britain united to win in the 21st century.
