At the next meeting of Labour's National Executive Committee, Mr Miliband will ask members to agree that this process should culminate with a Special Conference in the spring. Speaking in Coin Street, London, at 6pm tonight, Mr Miliband will underline his determination that, for the first time, individual working people in trade unions should make an active and personal decision to join Labour.
He described how these reforms will "modernise and strengthen Labour's historic relationship with trade unions" - ensuring that affiliated members are given a "real choice" about joining the Labour party and then "a real voice inside it". He declared that Labour, "is already far larger than any other political party in the UK", now has an opportunity to "become a genuinely mass membership organisation" with "roots deep in workplaces and communities all across Britain".
The reforms are a key part of Ed Miliband's mission to make Britain a more open, democratic, and dynamic country where the big decisions which affect people's lives are no longer taken only by a rich and powerful few. He emphasised that One Nation Labour wants to put working people at the heart of everything it does, including measures to clean up the lobbying industry and take the big money out of politics.
In contrast, as he sees it, to David Cameron who Mr Miliband claims "has consistently stood up for the wrong people" after revelations last year that he was holding "secret Downing Street dinners for his big donors, offering policy concessions to the wealthy few, and failing to answer straight questions about the role of Lynton Crosby" - who combines his job as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry with being the Prime Minister's chief political strategist.
Mr Miliband described a route-map to the Special Conference:
- Lord Ray Collins has been instructed to conduct a review to draw up detailed proposals. The review will examine precisely how these reforms will be implemented and any wider implications. It will advise on any other rule changes that may be necessary as a result of these reforms.
- The Collins Review will consult widely over the summer, asking how these reforms should be implemented. The responses will inform the Collins Review.
- The Collins Review will publish an interim consultation document at this year's Annual Conference in Brighton.
- Today, Ed Miliband is launching a national campaign which will include a series of town hall meetings to explain how Labour is changing so that we can change the way politics is conducted and change Britain.
- Harriet Harman, Labour's Deputy Leader, and Phil Wilson, the Labour MP who helped Tony Blair change Clause IV, have been given special responsibility to debate these changes with party members, working with other Labour MPs across the country. All members of the Shadow Cabinet will be playing a part in the national campaign.
- Jon Trickett, the Shadow Cabinet Office minister, and Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will work closely with the Collins Review on this process of reform. They will examine what further reforms are needed to make Labour a truly 21st Century mass membership organisation. They will draw on the work that has already begun under Arnie Graf's community organising model, as well as on the experience of other political parties and campaigns around the world that have opened up to people in new ways in recent years such as through the use of social media and new technology.
Ed Miliband said in his speech before a Q&A session: "We live in a country where for too many people politics seems too detached from their lives. I am proud of a Labour Party with 200,000 members that is rooted in many communities in Britain. But we could do so much more to be a party that represents the beating heart of the British people. The changes we are embarked upon are about this - about rooting our party in every part of Britain, including the workplaces of Britain. Our links with trade unions members provide us the opportunity to do that. But those links need to be real, local and vibrant.
Moving on to what he believes the Labour party of the 21st century should look like: "We need the three million nurses, engineers, shop workers, bus drivers, construction workers who are members of trade unions to be a proper part of our party. We need to reach out to people in every walk of life, including small businesses, entrepreneurs, and in every part of the country, South as well as North. We need to give all these working people a real choice about joining Labour - and then a real voice inside the party. If we succeed in this then Labour has a historic opportunity to become a truly 21st Century party. A party powered by people, a party that can change a country that has a politics too often skewed to the interests of a wealthy and powerful few."
Turning his attack on to David Cameron and the Tories Mr Miliband said: "Britain's working people don't get to have cosy dinners in Downing Street to discuss policy, like David Cameron's big donors. They don't have lobbyists looking after their interests, like the big tobacco companies do with Lynton Crosby. Britain's families don't get enormous tax cuts, like the hedge funds and the millionaires. That's why they need a party that is open to them. That is on their side. A One Nation Labour Party for all the people of Britain, not just a few at the top.
Concluding on how he wants Labour to change politics Mr Miliband said: "We're going to build a new way of doing politics. We want to open up our policy-making, clean up the lobbying industry and take the big money out of politics. And we want to let people back in. So I want all Labour party members, supporters, trade union members involved in this dialogue, leading up the Special Conference this spring to agree change. All of our country's history shows that change does not come just from a few people at the top. Change comes when individual people come together to demand it. The Labour Party has a chance to help make that happen. To build a movement again. A movement that makes change happen in communities across the country. And a movement that changes Britain."
