New beginnings

What a night. What an absolutely incredible, euphoric, vindication of everything we’ve been fighting for.

I’m writing this at 6am on Friday morning, still buzzing from the most extraordinary election night of my lifetime. The TV is still on in the background, showing talking heads trying to process what just happened. They’re struggling because none of them saw this coming. None of them understood what we were building out here.

The Morning After the Night Before

I’ve been campaigning for Labour here in Ceredigion, and I’ve watched the sneers, the dismissals, the constant predictions of electoral doom. The media, the establishment, our own bloody MPs - they all wrote us off. They said Jeremy was unelectable, that his politics were too radical, that we’d be wiped out.

Well, how do you like us now?

Labour didn’t just avoid the catastrophe they predicted - we surged. We gained seats. We increased our vote share by the largest amount since 1945. We turned what was supposed to be a Tory coronation into a hung parliament. The woman who called this election to crush us now can’t even command a majority.

Out here in mid-Wales, we didn’t take Ceredigion - Plaid held on, as expected. But our vote went up dramatically. And by God, we gave it everything we had. My comrades and I spent weeks trudging through every village from Aberystwyth to Lampeter, knocking on doors until our knuckles were raw. The state of my feet by polling day - I’ve got ulcers that’ll take weeks to heal, but it was worth every painful step.

More importantly, across Wales, we saw the Corbyn effect in action. We held Ynys Môn against the odds, we nearly took Preseli Pembrokeshire, and our majorities increased across the valleys.

What Changed Everything

The manifesto. That beautiful, bold, unapologetic socialist manifesto. For the first time in decades, Labour offered a genuine alternative. Not triangulation, not focus-grouped mush, but real policies that would transform people’s lives.

Free university tuition. Investment in the NHS. Renationalisation of the railways. A £10 minimum wage. These weren’t radical pipe dreams - they were popular, common-sense policies that the establishment had spent years telling us were impossible.

I lost count of how many doors I knocked on where people said: “I wasn’t going to vote Labour, but this manifesto…” Young people especially were energised in a way I’d never seen before. Students who’d been priced out of education, workers on zero-hour contracts, renters struggling with exploitative landlords - finally, someone was speaking to their reality.

The Media Couldn’t Stop Us

The bias was breathtaking. Day after day, the press threw everything they had at Jeremy. Terrorist sympathiser, communist, unpatriotic, unelectable - the smears were relentless. The BBC’s coverage was barely better.

But something beautiful happened: people stopped listening. Social media, grassroots campaigning, word of mouth - we built our own media ecosystem. When the mainstream media said Jeremy was weak, people watched him at rallies and saw strength. When they said his policies were extreme, people read the manifesto and found hope.

Here in Ceredigion, I saw it firsthand. My comrades and I - we walked until we could barely stand, covering every hamlet and housing estate. We’d start at dawn in Aberaeron, work our way inland through the villages, then finish after dark in New Quay or Llangrannog. The older activists joked that we were wearing out more shoe leather than in any campaign since 1945.

Traditional Labour voters who’d been told to be ashamed of Jeremy were suddenly proud to wear the red rosette again. Lifelong Tory voters were questioning everything they’d been told about the party. And every conversation, every door knocked, every leaflet delivered with aching feet - it all mattered.

The Youth Uprising

The young people. God, the young people were magnificent. They registered in unprecedented numbers. They turned out in droves. They campaigned with passion and energy that reminded me why I got into politics in the first place.

In Aberystwyth, the student vote was crucial. These young people, facing a future of debt, insecure work, and unaffordable housing, looked at Jeremy’s offer and saw someone who actually understood their struggles. They weren’t buying the establishment line about electability - they wanted authenticity, they wanted change, and they got out and voted for it.

What This Means for the Left

This changes everything. The neoliberal consensus that’s dominated British politics for decades has been shattered. The idea that we have to move to the centre to win elections has been exposed as the lie it always was.

Jeremy didn’t win by abandoning Labour’s values - he won by embracing them. He didn’t succeed by triangulating - he succeeded by taking clear positions and arguing for them with conviction. The lesson is obvious: people want an alternative to the failed economic model that’s left so many behind.

The Blairites in the party who’ve spent two years trying to oust Jeremy must be choking on their cornflakes this morning. Their entire worldview - that you can only win by accepting Tory framing, by offering Tory-lite policies - has been demolished. They told us we needed to be more like the Lib Dems. Well, the Lib Dems lost seats while we gained them.

The Fight Continues

But let’s not get carried away. We didn’t win. Theresa May is still Prime Minister, propped up by the DUP. The Tories are still in power, even if weakened. The fight is far from over.

What we’ve proven is that another way is possible. That you can run on a platform of hope rather than fear, of investment rather than austerity, of collective action rather than individual greed. We’ve shifted the entire political conversation to the left.

The establishment will regroup. They’ll try to undermine Jeremy, to water down our policies, to drag us back to the failed centre. We can’t let them. This moment - this energy, this movement we’ve built - we have to hold onto it and build on it.

From Ceredigion to the Country

Sitting here in watching the sun come up over a new day, I’m thinking about what we’ve achieved. Two years ago, Jeremy was a 200-1 outsider for the leadership. Last night, he came within touching distance of Downing Street.

The pundits got it wrong because they live in a bubble. They don’t understand the anger at austerity, the frustration with business as usual, the hunger for change that exists in places like this. They thought politics was just a game played by insiders.

We showed them it’s not. Politics is about people’s lives, their hopes, their struggles. When you speak to that reality with honesty and conviction, when you offer real solutions rather than managerial tinkering, people respond.

We’ve lit a fire. Now we have to keep it burning.

Solidarity forever.

Postscript: The Road Ahead

The pundits are already spinning this as a defeat for Labour. Don’t listen to them. What happened last night was the most significant shift in British politics in decades. The left is back, the movement is real, and the future is ours to fight for.

From all of us who’ve been campaigning with blistered feet and hoarse voices, in the valleys and villages, in the towns and cities, in places the Westminster bubble forgot - thank you, Jeremy. Thank you for showing us that another way is possible.

My comrades in Ceredigion, we may be nursing our war wounds - the foot ulcers, the exhaustion, the voices lost from shouting over the wind on rural doorsteps - but we’ve never been prouder to be Labour. We walked the length and breadth of this constituency, and we changed minds.

Now let’s get back to work.