Miliband: 'Labour Can Only Win If We Change'

Labour leader Ed Miliband has admitted his own party's leadership has lost touch both with its own members and the public.

In a speech in Wrexham to his National Policy Forum , he proposed reforms aimed at making his party less insular and its decision-making more open.

His controversial move to take sole responsibility for frontbench appointments has been criticised by some backbench MPs who will lose influence over Labour's top team.

But Mr Miliband said that Labour must reform so that it is more responsive to the public as it tries to present itself as the next party of Government.

The Labour leader said the party must not wait for the pendulum to swing back in its favour, arguing: "We can only win if we change."

At the gathering in north Wales he continued: "Our political culture must become less inward-looking and our decision-making more open.

"We cannot go back to the 1980s, simply making decisions within our own four walls. We've got to knock those walls down.

"We need to build a party which is rooted in the lives of every community in this country.

"The party I intend to build together with you will be one that faces outwards to the people it serves and works together in pursuit of its common goals.

"I want us to be an alternative Government. The only election members of the shadow cabinet should be worrying about is the general election."

Mr Miliband said that shadow cabinet elections - whereby, in opposition, Labour's frontbenchers are elected by a ballot of the party's MPs - forces them to "look inwards not outwards".

Instead Labour must become a "cause" or a "movement" in which every member is focused on the concerns of the public.

But he also pledged to lead in a style that is more responsive to the party than under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

"Old Labour forgot about the public. New Labour forgot about the party. And, by the time we left office, we had lost touch with both," he said.

"I will lead a party which is more open to the public. And my leadership will be more open and in touch with the party."

But the Tories dismissed Miliband's proposals as "trivial" adding that he had failed to break the trade unions' hold over the Labour Party.

Michael Fallon, the Tory deputy chairman, said: "These trivial proposals today offer little real change and won't reconnect Labour with the public.

"Ed Miliband cannot go on like this; failing to break the union hold over his party, failing to provide real change within his party, and failing to say sorry for the economic mess Labour left the country."

The shadow cabinet elections have been a feature of the Labour party for more than 50 years and the plan to abolish them have upset some MPs.

But Mr Miliband is said to be "confident" of winning his MPs' support.

Labour's conference will vote on the plans in September.

The reforms, part of the Refounding Labour organisational review to rebuild and modernise the party, would end the quota that means there must be a minimum of six female MPs in the shadow cabinet.

Former leadership candidate John McDonnell said he was "really disappointed" by the proposals.

He added: "I hear people around him are spinning this as his 'Clause 4' moment where he demonstrates strong leadership by beating the party into submission. I think he has misread the situation."

But Mr Miliband's elder brother, David, who was narrowly beaten to the leadership last year, publicly backed the move. His intervention raised speculation that he could return to the frontbench.

Political writer Tim Bale, the author of 'Conservative Party: Thatcher to Cameron' - a book apparently being picked apart by Labour to see what lessons can be learned from their enemies - told Sky News Miliband had taken the right step in admitting failures.

"Above all you have to communicate you are changing, and that does involve some shift in policies - and I think Miliband is already doing that," he said.