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Being outside the customs union would mean masses of new red tape, a desperate scramble for trade agreements and the re-emergence of a border in Ireland.
We have a really rich and diverse heritage in my family - but I sometimes felt it was a bit of a chain round my neck in the Labour party if truth be told.
If truth be told, certainly culturally, I never felt totally comfortable in the Labour party, because I've never really been a massively tribal politician.
Ukip has policies including cutting taxes for the wealthy and putting them up for everyone else, charging people to see their GP, or taking away maternity rights.
My dad always made a big thing about having well-cut suits. It's partly a cultural thing, but for him, looking sharp and presenting yourself well was very, very important.
Having common European standards has not only boosted prosperity here and across the continent, it is undoubtedly the best way of managing the challenges posed by globalisation.
Leaving the single market, making communities poorer and more alienated, is not the way to deal with public concerns about immigration, most of which comes from outside the E.U.
Getting from A to B can be crucial for small-business owners, self-employed people and freelancers too, who often rely on trains and buses to get around, conduct business and meet clients.
Leaving Labour was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do and it was not a cause of jubilation or happiness. I did it with great sadness, but you have to put the country first.
We are determined to work in partnership with business not only towards our goal of full employment, but for more secure jobs for working people so they can get on and meet their aspirations.
Despite Labour's achievements in government, we were too often seen as champions for global capital markets, which worked for bankers but did not seem to be delivering for the rest of Britain.
Part of the reason young people are getting involved with gangs, leading to the use of guns and knives, is not the lack of stop and search but the individualistic, consumerist society we live in.
Some people welcome the flexibility of a zero-hours contract. But their growth is symptomatic of a wider issue - increasing job insecurity and falling living standards in David Cameron's Britain.
Green growth is one vehicle through which technology, globalisation and environmental challenges can be turned from obstacles to solutions for problems related to growth, jobs and competitiveness.
My father was a black, working-class man who arrived here with no money in his pocket from Nigeria; my mum came from more of a middle-class background, whose father had prosecuted the Nazis at Nuremberg.
My dad was this pint-sized Nigerian with an oversized personality. My mother is a tall six foot something Irish-English woman. Us walking down the street was quite an unusual sight, when I was growing up.
I think the first person to call me 'Britain's Obama' was Martin Bright at the New Statesman. Harriet Harman made the comparison once at a conference; it was very flattering but it made me cringe slightly.
Shopping in the future can become an experience where conventional retailers can complement the success of online retailing. Government needs to work in partnership with the sector to help make this a reality.
I wasn't one of those people who had some grand plan to become Prime Minister. I'm a normal person. When I was being foolish in my twenties, when I was at university, I wasn't thinking I was going to become an MP.
My father was a rags-to-riches businessman who came over in the Sixties with no money. On my mother's side, I am the grandson of a High Court judge and celebrated intelligence officer, so it's quite an unusual combination.
I honestly do feel like the luckiest man alive. I have a beautiful daughter, an amazing wife and not everyone has that. My close mates always laugh at me because I say I'm blessed, but I don't know what I did to deserve it.
More and more department stores are acting as the shop window for a range of retailers now, using space more efficiently to recreate the feel of the local market, creating new market opportunities for the small and the niche.
My father had hammered into me, you want to look after your family, you want a nice house, and you want to be able to enjoy yourself, and you have to work very hard for those things. Don't think the world is going to come to you.
Work is the way we contribute to society, part of a reciprocal social contract - the giving of our effort and our taking when in need - that holds our society together. We work, we build our society, and we share in its prosperity.
To be clear, aiming to reduce the national debt in the long term and running small surpluses when the economy is operating close to full capacity is what I mean when I talk about seeking to 'balance the books' - a sensible approach.
In an age of globalisation, investment and good jobs increasingly flow to cities and regions with distinctive strengths and specialisms. These cannot be built up from Whitehall. They require local expertise, knowledge and dedication.
Requiring fund managers to disclose how they vote would increase accountability and mean that pensioners and ordinary investors would more easily be able to see how those acting on their behalf vote on all issues, including remuneration.
We want to see more sources of alternative finance, from innovations in factoring such as MarketInvoice or in peer-to-peer lending such as Funding Circle which Labour local authorities are now using to support and invest in local businesses.
I want to make sure that all GPs, not only in my constituency but across the U.K., help to raise awareness of the increased risk of prostate cancer in black men and have the knowledge to initiate these important conversations with the community.
Why not let the main parties wither? Because I know of no better vehicle than the political party to enable those with common values to come together and reach a position on issues that can then be offered up as a choice of programmes for voters.
We need to see many more people starting businesses and becoming their own boss, but the squeezed middle exists as much within this group as in the population at large as rising costs are hitting small businesses - who after all are consumers too.
Believe it or not, we all share the same values in the Labour party, but there will always be differences of opinion on policy - that is in the nature of the broad-church political parties we have under our flawed first-past-the-post electoral system.
Whether it is clamping down on tax avoidance by multinationals, setting ambitious targets for tackling climate change, or reforming the posted workers' directive to better protect migrant workers, European countries are working together to get things done.
Daily we see how demographic change and uncertainty about what it means to be British is exploited by those with their own agenda; those who employ divisive rhetoric, engage in scapegoating and do nothing to tackle root causes of the insecurities people face.
The Labour perspective is often very preoccupied with either the super-rich or those who don't have work - but doesn't have nearly enough to say to those who do have work, on incomes that may not mean they get benefits or tax credits, but are not well off people.
Back in the 1980s parts of our country were devastated by de-industrialisation. This wave of globalisation and the first fruits of technological innovation destroyed industrial jobs or exported them to low-wage economies. The loss of work had a devastating impact.
A prerequisite to the inclusive prosperity that will increase equality and reduce poverty is growth. This requires an innovative economy in which productive businesses, the state and citizens work together to create wealth and ensure that globalisation works for many more people.
I have multiple identities, never mind ethnically but in other respects... and it's even worse when they try to do it by reference to other people. This stupid term, 'Blairite,' that gets used in the Labour Party as a form of abuse, in spite of the fact this guy won three elections.
We do not just strive for a society in which every person has the opportunity to reach their full potential (all parties lay claim to that); we want to build a society in which whatever talents people have, they are rewarded with a comfortable standard of living when they apply them.
While we are clear that it is right that those who work hard, generate wealth and create jobs for our country are rewarded, where failure is rewarded or people award themselves huge pay rises that bear no relation to performance or what their companies can bear, trust is severely undermined.
I spent many hours slaving away, day and night, bleary eyed, on multi-million pound takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, and the rest. It could sound glamorous (especially when it involved overseas travel) but often it wasn't partly because, as a lawyer, you were not the one calling the shots.
Comparing every black male politician on the scene to Obama is a bit lazy - just because I'm from a similar background and profession, it's such an easy comparison to make. It's also quite annoying being viewed through the prism of someone else's personality and identity, rather than your own.
The argument in Labour around full membership of the single market is about whether it can be squared with delivering the desire of many of our voters to gain greater control over immigration. This is a proper concern - Labour must stand for those who voted leave every bit as much as we represent those who voted remain.
When a Conservative government is presiding over unfair cuts to tax credits, chaos in the NHS and an unnecessary and ideological attack on trade union rights, it is natural that many in the Labour party should be sceptical of Tory talk on devolution - sceptical, even of government deals with Labour-led local authorities.
Some will say it isn't the government's job to manage who people meet and interact with, but there is clearly a lot it can and should do. It should offer communities much more support to manage demographic and cultural change, including investment in public services and additional housing stock in our migration hotspots.
Too often, politicians fail to relate what they advocate to the kind of society they want to build, or they dress up policy in rhetoric which belies their actual intention. Meanwhile Joe Public is left wondering what on earth this bunch are all about and how their vision of a good society differs from that of the other lot.