LABOUR deputy leadership contender Jon Cruddas told the Morning Star conference on Saturday that Labour must win back the working-class vote with a progressive agenda.

ENTHUSIASTIC: Delegates addressed a lively crowd at the NUT offices.

Mr Cruddas said that his election campaign was about "mobilising real people around real issues.

"I think we are at a turning point, where issues can be contested and a more progressive alternative can be built," he said.

"We must contest the notion of 'virtual politics' based on the smart-bombing of a few thousand swing voters.

"Since 1997, Labour has lost 4.5 million voters, mainly among ethnic minorities, public service workers and university graduates.

"The biggest loss has been among the working class, especially manual workers."

These voters had not defected to the Tories, said Mr Cruddas, but had turned to new forms of nationalism, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats or were not voting at all.

Mr Cruddas gave the reasons for the decline as "the war, a failure to maintain the architecture of multiculturalism and the privatisation of public services" and called for a moratorium on privatisation.

He charged that the government was doing nothing to "choke off insecurities" around the lack of social housing and the hyper-exploitation of migrant workers, which had strengthened the far right.

Mr Cruddas concluded: "The new Labour agenda has been based on the withering away of the working class, but only a small proportion of jobs are in the new knowledge economy.

"We now have the opportunity to reintroduce class as a political and economic category.

"We can build a progressive agenda that will win elections. We can build a future around the economic and social emancipation of the working class."

LONDON Mayor Ken Livingstone told the conference that the world faces a catastrophe from climate change.

Mr Livingstone said that "tens or hundreds of millions of lives" could be lost to global warming, pointing out that the number of people dying from heat in Britain will soon exceed those dying from cold.

"We cannot mitigate the effects of climate change without a significant redistribution of wealth between and within nations," he said.

The mayor spoke of "carbon democracy," saying: "Ninety per cent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been put there by the US, Europe and Japan.

"There is nothing more obscene than to say that, for us to maintain our lifestyle, the developing world must continue to be mired in poverty."

Mr Livingstone said that cuts in carbon emissions required changes in government policy.

He said: "Vast subsidies for nuclear power will leave no money for other alternatives" such as local power stations, which would use waste hot water to heat buildings.

Mr Livingstone condemned Tory councils and London Assembly members for attacking the Freedom Pass travel scheme, the London living wage initiative and the minimum target of 35 per cent rented housing in all new London developments.

He called for a "huge defence of multicultural principles," adding: "This debate will allow us to defend and strengthen multiculturalism and defeat the BNP."

REPORT: JAMES TWEEDIE rounds up the Morning Star conference.

LEFT campaigners drew the link between imperialist war, social inequality and racism in Britain at the Morning Star's Politics After Blair conference at the weekend.

VOCAL: Salma Yaqoob and Mick Nicholas.

Respect national vice chairwoman Salma Yaqoob warned that "people are being made to compete with each other over smaller and smaller social resources.

"Since the 7/7 bombings, a tenuous link has been made between terrorism and integration. British foreign policy has demonised Muslims abroad, therefore it must demonise them at home," she said.

Ms Yaqoob was speaking at a session on Social Equality and Multiculturalism chaired by FBU executive member for black and ethnic minorities Mick Nicholas, who asked: "Is the failure of multiculturalism based on differences of race, class and age or on media influence?"

National Pensioners Convention vice-president Dot Gibson said that cuts in pensions and services had "led to misunderstandings in terms of racism." She stressed that both racism and its underlying problems should be tackled.

Responding to questions about Prime Minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown's definition of "Britishness," Tony Benn insisted: "The idea of Britishness is nonsense."

Ms Gibson added: "I don't defend what Britain did in Ireland, India or Iraq in our name. Let's get it straight - there are only two classes in society."

Blackpool and Fylde CND vice-chairman Geoff Bottoms chaired a lively question and answer session on Peace.

Delegates and speakers welcomed the recent Holyrood vote against Trident replacement as a major step towards the abolition of Britain's nuclear weapons.

The proposed US missile defence system was unanimously condemned and the speakers vowed to make links with peace activists in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary against siting elements of the system in those countries.

Scottish CND chairman Alan MacKinnon said that nuclear weapons are not a relic of the cold war, but a cornerstone of Britain's defence policy.

Britain's nuclear weapons are ultimately under US control, a dependency that runs right through the defence establishment.

CND chairwoman Kate Hudson pointed out that Israel has, for 30 years, rejected demands for a nuclear-free Middle-East.

She condemned US and British double standards in failing to condemn Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, while attacking Iran over its nuclear energy programme.

Warning of future US aggression against Iran, Stop the War Coalition chairman Andrew Murray said: "We cannot afford the slightest degree of complacency. The long war prepared by the US is not going to stop."

Opening the session on trade union freedom, Institute of Employment Rights director Carolyn Jones said: "In no issue is change more needed post-Blair than in trade union freedom."

Steve Gillan of the Prison Officers Association recalled that his members had been denied the right to strike since 1994, insisting: "Trade union freedom is about human rights."

Employment rights lawyer John Hendy QC warned that, "without strong trade unions, the working class is vulnerable to every kind of attack.

"The loss of trade union rights has had a fundamental impact on living standards in this country," he said.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow agreed, saying: "Trade union rights give workers the chance to fight back and take a cut from out of the bosses' pockets."

This was a lively and enthusiastic conference which expressed great confidence for the future.

Given its overwhelming success, participants are already demanding that the Morning Star conference should become an annual event.