Left’s Twitter army are on a jihad, but they’ll find reality bites

If Arsène Wenger was told by 80 per cent of Arsenal players that they would not play in his team, then he would be gone. Immediately.

Losing the dressing room is never that blatant, but it is final. There is no appeal – not to the board, the owner or the fans.

Even the glamorous and media-friendly José Mourinho suffered under that iron law. Beleaguered football managers must look longingly at the Labour Party.

A vote to exit the European Union has led to mass resignations from Labour’s shadow cabinet and frontbench. Jeremy Corbyn has lost a vote of no confidence by 172 to 40 and has the support of not a single one of Labour’s members of the European Parliament. Isolated does not begin to describe it.

Yet he is refusing to go, and is so holed up that one would expect YouTube to be flooded with parodies. But ironically, it is the internet and the political structures it creates, in particular Momentum – the organisation set up to support Corbyn’s ultra-Left takeover of the Labour Party – which is actually sustaining him. How?

For every real world event – a resignation or a demand for Corbyn to go – there is an online response in support of him. And they are vicious. When an MP comes out against Corbyn they are immediately denounced as a Blairite – whatever their actual political views.

Now, as Tony Blair’s political secretary I had a lot of experience with the political management of the Parliamentary Labour Party and I can vouch for the fact that many of those opposed to Corbyn are certainly not Blairites. Perhaps I should issue certificates!

But the online world is a post-fact one, and Corbynistas have already declared that Ed Miliband, who repudiated Blair, and Gordon Brown, who overthrew him, are dyed-inthe-wool Blairites. If only!

The power of Corbyn’s followers is to assert an alternative reality, a through the looking glass world. So, when the London MP Andy Slaughter resigned from his post as shadow justice minister this week he was savaged online. Slaughter was called a “rat”, a “gutless liar”, an “infiltrator” and “a traitor to our party, our country and democracy”.

Now, if you live in Hammersmith you will know Andy as a brilliant and dedicated constituency MP.

If you live in the real world you will see his views – in support of Palestine and against Israel – as pretty standard Leftwing positions. For Momentum members, however, he is one of the “#RedToryTraitors taking part in this #ToryLiteCoup”.

That’s when you see what is really going on. Momentum are simply a continuation on the internet