THE first party conference after an election defeat is always the toughest. You can’t help thinking about what might have been and about the long slog that lies ahead. In many ways the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader and the massive influx of new members and supporters into the party have given us the boost we need to rekindle our optimism.

But hope only gets us so far and — as with any other post-election conference — we have to take the opportunity to look back unflinchingly at what went wrong and begin to chart a course forward, back to power.

To such ends I have been reflecting on what I learned from Unison members during the general election and what it tells me about how Labour can reconnect, not just with my union’s members but with working people more generally.

My starting point has been the research I commissioned in the run-up to the election in an attempt to gauge the political temperature of Unison members.

In focus groups up and down the country we found a lot of anxieties about job security, about the supposed economic recovery not filtering into pay packets and strong concerns about the future of the NHS, local government and wider public services.

But in addition to this, the research was also very revealing about how people saw the Labour Party. Three big findings stood out.

First, our members were still more likely than not to support Labour, except in Scotland.

But, second, for many that support was only lukewarm. It was driven by fear of the Tories rather than any great enthusiasm for Labour.

Third, apart from our established Labour campaigners, the breadth of engagement in the election campaign by Unison activists — even in the key marginal seats — wasn’t what we might have expected.

Where our people went out and talked to ordinary members about the issues at stake in the election it made a massive difference. But if I am honest it wasn’t widespread enough.

So what were the reasons for our members’ apparent lack of love for Labour? In Scotland of course it was about the fallout from the independence campaign and the SNP’s successful attempt to present itself as to the left of Labour.

In Britain more widely, the sense that Labour was austerity-lite was a big factor. Repeated pronouncements from Labour’s front bench on sticking with pay restraint did not help — neither did the lack of commitment to saving jobs.

“There’s nothing to choose between them” was a common refrain.

For others, including those members who voted Tory and in some cases Ukip, it was the same combination of factors that proved so decisive among the rest of the electorate — a lack of enthusiasm for Ed as a leader and a lack of faith in Labour’s ability to manage the economy.

What about the less-than-hoped-for level of engagement in the campaign by activists? One factor was the way many union activists, rather than doing political work in their own branches, engaging and talking to their colleagues, simply became part of the wider Labour campaign in their individual constituencies.

Another factor was that many activists simply weren’t inspired enough, which takes us back to the point about Labour being seen as barely any different from the Conservatives.

The election of Corbyn is vital in addressing this inspiration deficit. Clear opposition to austerity, to the welfare cuts and the Trade Union Bill mean that more of our people do now see Labour as offering a clear alternative — including in Scotland, where there is so much more to do. And despite the media hysteria that would have us believe otherwise, the front- bench team understand the need to strike the right balance between presenting an alternative and being credible.

But we now need to build on Corbyn’s victory and create an organisation and movement that enables Labour to connect with the millions of people who don’t vote, and those who abandoned Labour in 2010 and 2015. Unison and other affiliated unions have a major role to play in this. A key task is to encourage more ordinary men and women to get involved in politics and in campaigning in their communities. This shouldn’t just be about mobilising people to get involved in “business as usual” party activity. It should also be about supporting and encouraging members to take their experiences as working people into the party so that concerns around job quality, job security, pay, pensions and cuts to public services are at the heart of what the party does and says.

And it should be about those same people then taking the party back into the workplace, showing that Labour is the authentic party for all working people because it provides a platform for them to speak, reflects their concerns and is all about people just like them.

This is the route to reconnecting, and re-establishing the “movement consciousness” that lay behind Labour’s greatest successes in the past.

The Trade Union Bill, if it passes, will make all of this harder by attacking our political funds. But we cannot allow the Tory government to silence the political voice of ordinary working people.

There are many electoral tests between now and the next general election. These are important milestones on the route to 2020. We need to build electoral momentum. But equally importantly we need build a movement that can create that momentum by reconnecting the party with the communities it aspires to represent.

• Dave Prentis is Unison general secretary.