The red wall has fallen. As Labour leader, I will build a bridge to unite Britain's diverse communities

I am asking you to make the brave choice, not the easy one, in this leadership contest

Below is an edited version of the speech delivered today by Lisa Nandy in Dagenham.

I am so pleased to be back here in Dagenham: the place where the Ford machinists fought for equal pay and showed the world what strong women leaders could do when they refused to accept the status quo; where, as the far right try to play on the insecurities of a community in economic decline, activists have defeated hate with hope time and time again. It is awesome to be standing here in this community, one so rich with the past and so radical about the future, asking for your permission to lead the Labour Party back to power and become this country’s next prime minister.

The past few years have been a bruising and ended in shattering defeat. But now is not the time to steady the ship. If we do not change course, we will die. This is the moment when we up our game.

So I am asking you to make the brave choice, not the easy one, in this leadership contest.

Ours has always been a movement that faces north, south, east and west. But at this critical moment in our nation’s history, Labour is in retreat. Defeated in Scotland; beaten back in North Wales and large parts of the northern, southern and Midlands towns; fighting for our lives in many major cities.

The reality is that path back to power runs not along our red wall but across a red bridge, one that connects our towns and cities and stretches from Dagenham to Fulham, Aberdeen to Glasgow, Cardiff to Wrexham. But some no longer seem to believe we can stand for all of Britain’s diverse communities. These people have accepted the idea that we must choose: between working and middle class, leave and remain, north and south, young and old, towns and cities.

I refuse to play this zero-sum game. Ours is a harder path than the Tories, and a better one. Not just to try and see how much we can appeal to Putney without losing Mansfield – but to make our case to both.

On Brexit, we failed at this. We let the Tories divide us from our people, putting our activists in an impossible position: be for Labour, or your community. Not both.I promise you that under my leadership this will never happen again.

In Scotland, we have to accept that we do not have all the answers. Now is not the time to argue amongst ourselves, but to look outwards. Labour should set up an international commission, created by and for Scottish people, to learn from the times in modern history where social justice has trumped divisive nationalism. Because I believe we have more that unites us as a nation than dividing us.

“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” was a slogan. But behind it lay something profound. It recognised that people who were victims of crime were right to want more police on the streets – but that people who hated that children who were poorer or from minority backgrounds were likelier to end up in prison were also right. And that combining more police with restorative justice could deal with the concerns of both.

That is as true now as it was then – though now particularly when it comes to climate change, without any doubt the biggest challenge we face. When activists in Balham talk about a green revolution, people in Bassetlaw see power stations closing and energy bills rising. But what those Balham activists call for a green revolution that creates jobs and lowers bills, Bassetlaw locals listen. We might speak a different language, but our ambitions are the same.

Labour is already building this red bridge. Whether it’s here in Dagenham where the council has used clean energy to drive investment, or back home in Wigan whose Labour council spent millions on a new youth zone – we may not be in power, but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless.

For 15 years, we’ve thought we needed to change the man in order to fix this. But the Labour leadership that is needed now is not the man standing at the despatch box – it is the woman who, like those in Dagenham, go out and build a movement to create change.

Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade not because it is easy but because it is hard.” It’s these words that have motivated me: in my battle against the last Labour government to get child refugees out of Yarl’s Wood and take homeless teenagers off the streets of Soho; as a new MP waging a lonely war to defeat the free schools that fail children with special needs; as vice-chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, standing up for the right of both Palestine to be recognised and Israel to exist; or in recent years, calling for a compromise on Brexit. I have learnt that progress is not inevitable. If you want a better country, you have to go out and fight for it.

From the Race Relations Act – deeply personal to me– to the Crosland Reforms that ensured British children could grow up with others from different backgrounds – and gave me my lifelong friends – we have never made this country the best it can be by playing it safe. There are moments in history that demand you stand up – now is one of those moments.

10 years and what feels like a lifetime ago, Tessa Jowell scooped me up – a new MP from a very different part of the party and the country – to support her to deliver the Olympic Games. It remains one of the formative experiences of my life. Just down the road from here, in an act of extraordinary symbolism, Bury lad Danny Boyle organised rehearsals for the opening ceremony in the car park of the old Ford plant. It was to become the moment when the story of Britain in all its radical diversity was told to millions around the world. Thousands of volunteers took part rehearsals – yet miraculously, every bit of it remained secret. Boyle had said volunteers could record the rehearsals if they wanted, but simply asked them not to. He believed in them, so they believed in him.

That is why I want to lead this party: to rebuild the trust that will create the Britain I have believed in all of my life, but never seen. With your help, I can do this.

Lisa Nandy is MP for Wigan, and a Labour leadership candidate.