Beating David Cameron’s Tories in the next election will mean energising our activists and working together as a party. We all need to knock on doors and urge voters to back a progressive manifesto that we all feel collective ownership over.

Getting to this point cannot happen without working together to find a policy-making process that members are properly engaged in. This means that we have to keep up the pace of change. Modernising the way in which we have made policy for years and moving out of our comfort zone is about reforming Labour for the better. Being the party with the most engaged members and the most effective policy is what will help us win the next election.

Thinking hard, as a party, about the way in which we make our policy is not naval-gazing. It is a crucial discussion to have, and can carry us further down the road towards being a party that faces outwards, towards the people we represent. We have come far down this road already- the policy forum process is gaining acceptance as the best way of building our manifesto, and shuts no member out. Yet, we must go further in opening up our policy-making processes. That is why it is so important that, under these reforms, the NPF would be duty-bound to organise more local policy forums, so that more members can shape our national policy.

The reason why I will be supporting Gordon Brown’s reforms are that they are the difference between the old-fashioned hangover from a previous time of making late-night policy deals at annual conference, and a future for the party that sees ordinary members further empowered in the policy process. The only thing that has gotten better about these backroom deals in the last year is the lack of smoke in the room since the smoking ban came in. But, members will rightly demand more improvement than that if we are to feel like the manifesto we create belongs to us all.

When people ask me why I am supporting these changes to the status quo, I tell them that for the length of time I have been in our party, members have moved progressively closer to the heart of policy-making, and that I don’t want to see that process stop now. The policy forum is undoubtedly a more welcoming, consensual way of making policy than arguing over the nuances of a motion. Giving more power – and responsibility – to a properly democratic NPF, whilst strengthening local policy forums is crucial. It will bring in more voices and allow the best ideas of all members the chance to form our manifesto.

The importance of this was brought home to me recently. After one of the fist times that we held a series of policy forums at a Labour Students event, one of our members came to speak to me afterwards. She told me how she had contributed nothing to the motion debates we had held at an event the year before. These had been fairly exhaustive policy discussions, but – as ever- it was the same members who felt able to contribute.

When we replaced some of our motion debates with policy forum slots, more people contributed to the discussion. That same member who came up to speak to me told me how she had just contributed more to one policy forum session than she had contributed to a lifetime of debates on motions. The outcome of this was a more balanced and effective set of policy ideas that we could then submit to the NPF. Any change to the policy-making process in the wider party that strengthens policy forums and brings more members into the policy-forming arena is surely welcome change.

In Labour Students, and around the party, there is a continuing hunger to get involved and look more closely at policies. Decisions at CLPs are now less likely to be made on the basis of a confrontational mechanism, because we use policy forums more and, through discussion, come to a consensus position that we all can feel part of. What helps us to create good policy in an open way also helps us to ensure that we mobilise all of our members to beat Cameron’s Tories.

When Gordon Brown talks about reforming our policy structures, it is important to remember that this strengthens the democratically elected NPF, and tasks it with representing members’ views. It brings members closer to where we make policy, which is the core reason why I will be supporting these vital reforms.