THE LABOUR Party has “not had the vision” to deliver change for working people and will get “absolutely smashed at the next election” if it does not reverse course, the BFAWU conference heard yesterday.

Left Labour MP Ian Byrne told delegates gathered in Yarnfield that his party is facing an “existential threat,” losing support to Reform UK and the Greens.

He said: “If we don’t use our mandate to do something transformational — to represent working-class communities and people — you could arguably say we deserve to get absolutely smashed at the next election.

“If [Labour] doesn’t, I don’t know where we’ll be in three years’ time. I don’t even know if there will be [a Labour Party].

“It must prove to you — trade unionists — that it is the Labour Party that [you] founded and that it will actually enact policies that lift people out of a desperate situation.

“We’ve done some good things, but they’re not getting through. Because we have made bad political moves.”

He mentioned the Makerfield by-election, where Number 10 hopeful Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is running in a close race against the Reform UK candidate.

Mr Byrne said: “The first thing you get when knocking on doors [in Makerfield] is winter fuel payments,” referring to Labour’s now reversed decision to cut help for fuel costs for pensioners.

“I will never argue with someone who says: ‘What has [Labour] done for us?’

“It’s difficult to get into this argument because of what we have done in people’s minds, or what we haven’t done.”

He also went into the promise of the Labour Party to support the Hillsborough Law, which would require authorities and public servants to act with absolute honesty and transparency during official investigations, public inquiries or investigations.

If the Bill was “done right,” he said, it would be groundbreaking “from Hillsborough, to the contaminated blood scandal, the Post Office scandal, Grenfell.”

Mr Byrne slammed “the human rights lawyer” Sir Keir, who he expected to have the “bollocks to stand up and do the right thing” but has gone against his promises, pushing for carve-outs to the transparency law.

“We cannot have a carve-out for security services. [The law] will actually enable better security services because they’ll have a duty of accountability.

“I genuinely hope that Keir Starmer uses this as his legacy. He promised to do it, and I hope he delivers.”