What happened
Corbyn’s triumph
Jeremy Corbyn promised last weekend to reach out to his critics, after winning a decisive victory over his challenger, Owen Smith, in Labour’s leadership election. Corbyn secured almost 62% of the vote – a larger share than he won in his original election a year ago. The result was announced in the main hall at the Labour conference, in Liverpool. Hailing it as a personal “vindication”, Corbyn said he would “wipe the slate clean”, but refused to call on hard-left allies to drop their threats to deselect the rebel MPS who had tried to depose him. Of the 65 Labour frontbenchers who stood down over the summer, around a dozen are reportedly ready to rejoin the fold, but several said they would only do so if Corbyn agreed to let MPS elect most of the members of his shadow cabinet.
John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, unveiled what he called a “radically fairer” economic programme. His blueprint included £250bn of infrastructure spending, a £10-an-hour minimum wage by 2020, and a crackdown on corporate greed. “In this party you no longer have to whisper it,” he declared to loud applause. “It’s called socialism.”
What the editorials said
There go Labour’s hopes of winning power in the next decade, said The Independent. Corbyn’s victory means he will now be free to lead his party further to the left, away from the voters it needs to win back. The party is “set for an electoral disaster such as it cannot imagine”. These are dark days for the threequarters of Labour MPS who backed a motion of no confidence in Corbyn in June, said The Observer. Last week’s result shows that the gulf between them and the Labour membership is wider than ever. According to an exit poll, while only 37% of members who joined the party before 2015 voted for Corbyn, among newer members that figure was 83%. Labour rebels now have little choice but to give their leader “some space to try to succeed”.
Anti-corbyn MPS appear to have ruled out forming a breakaway, Sdp-style centrist party, said The Daily Telegraph. So they’re left with a choice between working with the leadership, despite their misgivings, or continuing “the internal feuding by effectively coldshouldering” Corbyn. But it’s hard to see these MPS surviving long in any event, given the way they’re being denounced as “traitors” and lined up for deselection. “Even if they can’t see the purge coming, the rest of the country can.”