Each person who finds their way into politics does so through a different route. For some, it’s women’s rights, job security or racial injustice that is the spark; for others, it’s climate change or animal rights or homelessness. For me, it was always – front and centre – about the material, economic conditions of the working class.

Among my political inspirations are the manifestations of the working class self-improvement movements of the nineteenth century, the Mechanics’ Institutes, the Friendly Societies, the original Co-operatives, and the similar organisations and institutions that followed in their wake. Things like Citizens Advice, maybe, or the Open University – bodies which complement and share an affinity with socialism as an idea and with national government, but which sit somewhat away from them, as a reflection of the importance of grassroots community power in a world of state bureaucracy and private sector finance.

It’s movements and institutions like these that are the lifeblood of community strength, class solidarity and mutual self-improvement. By building them up together, and growing their power together, we each grow stronger, more prosperous and can take pride in our work and our places.

It’s with that perspective, that I’ve had a long career across the north of England helping community businesses, non-profit organisation and social enterprises of many type start and grow. Back in 2014, I co-founded a magazine, Ethos, dedicated to promoting the best in ethical and community entrepreneurship across the world, and I was the first person to bring the Soup live crowdfunding event programme to the UK.

I’ve taken that background and experience with me into parliament since my election as Southport’s MP in July. To the extent that I can now use my platform to promote the co-operative economy in all its forms, and to expand community ownership, I will. Co-ops have embedded in them at source, an ethical and organisational commitment to justice and fairness that other forms of business can lack. A co-operatively-owned business will achieve buy-in for its decisions from workers in a way a privately-owned one may struggle. A community interest company, or a community benefit society, will seek to give back to its community – either geographically or in other forms – than merely extract profit.

I’ll not want to single out for praise any one particular group, for fear of merely giving favour to the ones I know or have helped out. But I will say that – in the aftermath of the community tensions that the UK experienced this Summer, most notably but not only, in my own Southport constituency – the founding and overriding ethos of the co-operative movement is the one form of ownership best placed to assist in helping my town to heal and in helping the UK’s failed economic system to start working again for the majority of the country. It’s no surprise to me that, in all the rioting this Summer, that three of the most high profile buildings to be attacked were a place of worship, a library and a citizens’ advice bureau – the very places where people go to in times of need, and where people help each other to grow within communities. These places stand as monuments to the best of our country, and the rioters attacked them for that reason.

Imagine a retail model that didn’t split off its property division from its trading division and then proceed to lease back the shops to itself at extortionate rates, leading inevitably to higher prices, closed shops and derelict high streets. Imagine a food wholesaler that didn’t drive down supply chain prices until independent farmers couldn’t make ends meet any more, leading inevitably to inappropriate land use and job losses. Imagine an industrial strategy that insisted on baking in co-operative principles with its partners, leading to an economy that grew from the grassroots in the regions rather than through being overly reliant on financial services.

If we can imagine these things, that’s the first step to doing them. I strongly believe that forms of community ownership – in all the rich variations there are of it – is one of the most sustainable and easiest to achieve ways of helping our business sector get involved in restitching the social fabric of our country back together. More co-ops, more community businesses, more social enterprises, more genuinely collaborative business models. They can help to help rebalance our economy, and they can help to help repair our fraying society.