WHEN I was young, I had a clear trinity of values. At work I joined the union, at elections I voted Labour and I shopped at the Co-op. 

The intertwining of these activities — I was a union, Labour Party and Co-op member — meant never having to think about the quality of representation this formula delivered.

Today these relations are under severe strain as each part of the triumvirate reacts to the changes driven by neoliberalism.

The Tories saw this on coming into office and sought to exploit it by promoting the social economy, seeing it as having a role in job creation, improving public services, and even in reforming the role of government itself.

Remember all the talk of the John Lewis model, mutualism and the big society?

It did sound nice, and some co-operators did try hard to engage until it became clear just how little the right understands, or in fact really cares about, the social economy.

For the Cabinet Office, co-operatives and mutuals were a cover for privatisation. Coercing public-sector workers into joining some pseudo-mutual is a travesty of co-operative principles.

Membership of co-ops must always be voluntary, governance must be democratic, and their whole purpose is to serve their members and their communities for their common benefit — not as a transit lounge into the private sector.

For the right, the social economy is often viewed as a final refuge for the discarded victims of capitalism. This is why they advocate charity as the proper response to poverty — never solidarity or equity.

Tragically the truth is the previous Labour government did not really get the social economy either.

It is composed of civil organisations and networks that are driven by the principles of reciprocity and mutuality in service to the common good — usually through the social control of capital. There are co-operatives, non-profit organisations, foundations, voluntary groups and a whole range of associations that operate both inside the market, as many successful co-operatives and fair trade groups do, or in non-market provision of goods or services.

These include in cultural production, the provision of health or social care, and the provision of food, shelter or other necessities to people in need. In its essence, the social economy has the potential to be a space where economics is at the service of social ends, not the other way round.

I suspect in a neoliberal world these ideas just do not compute. The right has used the social economy as a proxy for the promotion of capital and markets, and the left has consistently viewed the social economy as a vehicle for the delivery of what should be state functions through a form of clientism. Look at how many of our largest charities are now dependent on state funding.

This has both stunted the growth of the mutual and co-operative sector and turned workers away from seeing them as a genuine vehicle for social change.

So imagine my delight and surprise when I read the Co-operative Party’s agenda for Britain. General secretary Karin Christiansen and her team have produced a very substantial piece of work. Many of us thought she was too close to the Labour Party and too far away from the Co-op, but this shows that is not the case.

This is a real attempt to take a genuinely comprehensive co-operative agenda into government.

Sadly it comes as the Co-operative retail sector has suffered a massive loss of confidence and in drawing in its horns has lost the will to see a role for itself as a champion of a wider co-operative future.

If I was designing a co-operative political entity at the present time I don’t think it would look like the current Co-operative Party. But let us not pretend that doing without it would end our need to engage politically.

Other large-scale retailers spend a fortune on political engagement but do so under the radar. Our crime is one of transparency. In recent years Tesco, for example, has retained at least 10 different political consultant firms as lobbyists at any one time.

The current elections for the Co-op Group, in which I am a candidate, will elect the first council of the new regime.

In my opinion, dumping the Co-op Party would not be wise as it will be the devil’s own job to recreate something like it. Yes, it needs some radical reform, so we need to buy some time after the general election to work out what we best need to drive the co-operative political agenda into the future.

At that point we should seek the members’ endorsement for a sensible program of political engagement. The huge victories for political funds in the trade union ballots should give us confidence in such a strategy.

In the meantime if you support a more co-operative future, get your Labour candidate to endorse this program. Go to: http://2015.party.coop.

•  Nick Matthews is chair of Co-operatives UK.