So what’s Jezza got to look forward to? Chaos and agony...

THE chaotic consequences of Jeremy Corbyn’s misguided leadership of Labour will be writ large this week in a series of events that will shape the party’s future and expose its agonies.

For not only does Corbyn face a series of blows to his bedraggled authority by MPs furious at his handling of the imminent vote on Syria, but there is the unenviable prospect of the Oldham by-election, where Labour is struggling to hold off a Ukip advance among its working-class voters.

To add insult to injury, the Government is set for a historic victory over a newly elected Labour figurehead, securing support for air strikes against Syria from a Left-leaning shadow cabinet.

Forget the hated Blairites: it’s prominent soft-Left MPs – who only two months ago agreed to join Team Corbyn – who are now gunning for him just as resolutely as Labour’s banished Right. And the signs are, they want him out of the job as soon as possible.

Even formerly supportive key figures, like shadow minister for London and mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan – who nominated Corbyn for the leadership and shared union organising power with him – are openly despairing. ‘It’s not been our best week by any stretch of imagination,’ Khan tells me.

He has told friends he is more likely than not to back the Syria intervention, subject to reassurance about post-war planning.

Rebellion has spread rapidly. I’m told it now includes rising stars such as Labour’s health spokesman Heidi Alexander and brainy transport spokesman Lilian Greenwood. Both are inclined to do something that was unthinkable before the Paris attacks: vote in favour of military action in defiance of their new leader.

This has forced Camp Corbyn into letting it be known he is likely to back down and offer Labour MPs a free vote on Syria. The newcomers are supported by the shadow cabinet’s Eagle sisters, Maria and Angela, seen as the rump of the Brownite party and popular on the backbenches.

Interventions by Left-leaning former ministers have raised the stakes even further. Ex-defence minister John Spellar’s attack on the ‘tiny Trots’ around Corbyn, and ex-Home Office minister Fiona McTaggart’s assessment that the party would be better off with anyone but its current leader will have emboldened others.

But the Oldham election on Thursday will be the first real road test of Jezza’s appeal. In precisely the kind of heartland he sets out to woo, a competent local candidate, Jim McMahon, is struggling to hold off Ukip.

One frontbencher who has just returned from the panicky last minute campaigning tells me it ‘makes Ed Miliband’s outfit look like a Rolls Royce operation’.

LABOUR’S vortex is a huge opportunity for David Cameron. No10 has rolled out the big hitters to gain Labour votes on Syria, with foreign and defence secretaries Philip Hammond and Michael Fallon talking to wavering MPs.

Hilary Benn, who is said to be ‘deeply angry’ at his boss’s refusal to accept UN-backed intervention, is being lined up as an interim leader if Corbyn falls on his sword – or is pushed into it.

But Benn has stiff competition from Tom Watson, the bullish deputy leader who apparently gave a ‘barnstorming’ speech in favour of intervention. MPs are dubbing him Frank Underwood after the skulduggerous House Of Cards TV character who plotted his way to the White House.

In these dire circumstances, pity anyone who gets it.