After chaos, it's still Your Party ...and you can cry if you want to

CORBYN MISSES OUT ON LEADERSHIP AS MEMBERS VOTE FOR 'COLLECTIVE' MODEL

- AARON NEWBURY

CORBYN MISSES OUT ON LEADERSHIP AS MEMBERS VOTE FOR 'COLLECTIVE' MODEL

A WOMAN from Coventry looks deathly worried. We're in the lobby of a Liverpool exhibition centre on Friday afternoon — the day before Jeremy Corbyn’s grand socialist experiment officially launches.

Our new friend is already fretting about “factional infighting” tearing the whole thing apart.

Her comrade (a word bandied around a lot), leans in conspiratorially. She’s terrified that Zarah Sultana, the party’s co-founder, will “get her supporters together and seize control”. The conference has not even begun and already the knives are out.

Welcome to Your Party. Or is it Our Party? For the Many? Popular Alliance? They haven’t decided yet. That’s tomorrow’s problem.

By Friday evening, I’m at a poetry event with the left-wing messiah, Jeremy Corbyn himself.

Outside, wild-eyed activists warn of a “zionist takeover”. The far-right is in charge and we're all just sitting here and letting it happen, they shout. Inside, four hecklers are ejected for demanding the messiah take a firmer line against Zionism.

“Saboteurs! MI5!”, jokes Len McCluskey from the stage. Several people seem to think he’s serious. The messiah stares at his phone.

Saturday morning and the purge begins in earnest. Members of the Socialist Workers Party are barred from entering. The Socialist Alternative, and the Socialist Party are similarly deprived. A “right-wing elite” is apparently conducting a witch hunt against the left.