The Left now has a rich network of organisations it has built; from this very magazine to my own organisation, CLASS; from Novara Media to gal-dem, Autonomy to CommonWealth. We also have a group of powerful trade unions which have taken centre-stage during the pandemic, playing key roles in shaping pandemic policies and protecting the rights and wages of millions of people.

Through its organisations, the Left is producing talented spokespeople and policies, and building relationships. Not only are these organisations growing and coordinating – they’re also putting forward the only viable answers to the multiple interconnected crises facing the country, like climate change, inequality, and the rise of the far right. CLASS, for example, has several projects coming out in 2021, including investigations into how to tackle the culture wars, what the post-Covid economy will look like, how to speak progressively about the economy, and more.

But more than that, hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists ensure our organisations are successful. These activists might be feeling raw after the 2019 general election result, but they haven’t disappeared into a puff of smoke. They’re still taking an interest in politics, donating money to left-wing causes, and looking for ways to get active. In 2020, this might have taken the form of organising mutual aid to people self-isolating, or joining Black Lives Matter protests. This is a mass movement of people who have demonstrated that they’re willing to go out into the freezing cold and rain to fight for what they believe in. That is priceless.

Let’s remember that it was the Left that originally pioneered the idea of a Green New Deal back in 2007, and the Left—in the form of Rebecca Long-Bailey’s Green Industrial Revolution work—that developed progressive climate policy over the past seven years. The left-wing answer to climate change is radical economic policy that would simultaneously tackle the regional inequalities that blight the British economy, create a new manufacturing industry characterised by good, unionised work, and build the foundations of a healthy future. This kind of profound structural change remains the only viable progressive way of averting climate catastrophe: anyone who has read the science can see that. Nothing going on in Westminster changes this fundamental truth.

And it’s not just climate change. Over the past decade the Left has developed policies to reimagine our relationship with work (like a three-day weekend and universal basic income), reshape our public services (by imagining new forms of public ownership) and transforming local government (like the Preston Model). A number of these radical economic transformations are already happening in other countries around the world, and most of them enjoy strong support from the British public. No other political movement is producing these kinds of popular and necessary ideas – only the Left. Many of them are being adopted by other countries because they are obvious solutions to structural problems. In other words, there is an inevitability to these ideas.

Many of us on the left are labouring under the misconception that we are in a terrible state because of the 2019 result. I would argue that the election result is a significant setback, but not a defeat.

To understand why, it’s useful to compare our political circumstances to the ones in which Tony Blair became leader in 1994. Back then, the Left had been utterly defeated over the course of a decade. The collapse of the Soviet Union not only meant that most people did not consider socialism a possibility – it also meant that money started draining away from left-wing organisations like think tanks and magazines. The Left was exhausted and bereft.

Blair, on the other hand, was forward-looking, and his political project was fizzing with ideas. The Blair Revolution by Peter Mandelson is essentially a 200-page vision for the country, packed full of what were considered innovative and exciting policies.

Keir Starmer became Labour leader in an era where the political traditions he apparently follows are collapsing across the world, where young people are more economically and socially progressive than ever before, where the Left is building not declining, and where—far from seeming unassailable—capitalism is failing to provide basic necessities for huge numbers of people even in wealthy, democratic countries. Perhaps the reason Starmer is often criticised for not saying enough is because he doesn’t have a lot to say. On the other hand, there has not been a period in my lifetime where the Left has had more to say than it does now.

The Corbyn years were a difficult time for the Left: trying to build a movement while also holding the Labour leadership was hard. Our movement, having been marginalised for so long, was beset by structural weaknesses – and at the same time we were attacked from all corners, including from within the Labour Party itself. It was like trying to build a house without all the tools we needed, while other people were constantly trying to set the house on fire.

Nevertheless, those years created a forward-thinking policy programme for the Left, and without them, older socialists would never have formed alliances and relationships with a new generation of activists. Losing the 2019 election was an enormous blow for the Left (and the country), but now that we’ve been forced to take a step back, we should take the chance to consolidate. Unburdened by the need to involve ourselves in Westminster chess games, we can now think about what our priorities are.

The Left is in a stronger position than it was in 2015 – with institutions, ideas, public support, opportunities, and a movement that did not exist back then. We should not let grief about the 2019 election blind us to the opportunities we have. As director of CLASS, I will support the Left in developing its skills and transforming the world in the way I know we can. The future is ours – if we’re brave enough to take it.