British Labour 'needs to change' to win elections - Ed Milliband

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 Ed 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."

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."