None of us believe countering terrorism is about party politics

Politics is about the participation and engagement of the wider citizenry - to miss that point would doom us to irrelevance.

Crucially, I'd like to thank Labour party members up and down the country for sticking with us. For their active citizenship, their willingness to engage in our democracy, and for being there at the cutting edge of making our democracy work.

Politics is only worthwhile if you are doing what you believe, regardless of the slings and arrows.

We must draw on our early roots and remind people why the Labour party was created and who it sought to represent. We have never been a sectional party promoting self-interest, but instead a force for engaging self-reliance and self-determination.

We need to reaffirm that politics is not merely compatible with economic progress and development in the 21st century, but essential to it.