It’s like poking a corpse, this Labour party crisis, and yet it’s impossible to look away. Refresh the page and oh, there are another five or six resignations. And in the middle of one of the biggest (and most mendaciously wrought) political crises of the last 50 years, where millions of voters are expressing heartbreak at the referendum result and are in desperate need of a movement in which to channel it. In many ways, I’m reminded of my GCSE physics exam. I spent weeks and weeks (OK, a couple of days) trying to learn the intricacies of the syllabus, and then on the day of the exam I flipped open the paper and the first question was, “Explain why the sun will eventually implode.” This is some big-picture shit now.

It’s an aching frustration that many seasoned Labour voters will know well. Just at the point when we should be nailing the Tories to the wall for their complacency and incompetence, instead the party is falling apart. But for the young Labour supporters who pinned their hopes on Labour for the first time, this attempt to depose Corbyn might be their first taste of that traditional dismay. I wonder how many Labour MPs are thinking of them right now, as they contemplate the possible splitting of their party.

As someone who voted for Corbyn, I spent last summer alternating between bafflement and rage. Not just because of the media response to him – being patronised is never enjoyable, but young people of an idealistic bent are used to that – but because, as I wrote at the time, the political establishment didn’t seem to understand where this surge of support for Corbyn came from. While I expected the personal attacks, I was less prepared for “the establishment’s cluelessness about why this movement is happening and how it is less about the man than about the values that he represents – fairness, equality, peace – and the hope that he inspires for a younger generation”. They really didn’t get it.

And they still don’t, do they? It was never about Corbyn for me – and lots of others who supported him – but about what he stood for. His values appealed not only to those disillusioned Labour voters who had abandoned the party in droves, but also to younger people who had never in their lifetime encountered a politician who spoke both to them and about them, and who embodied their desire for a fairer society without being afraid to raise the spectres of the kind of progressive policies that for years had been verboten.

So why, if it’s really about the politics and not the person, are so many so determined to make it about him now? Is it a case of “Corbyn or nowt”, or are you prepared to back another leftwing (and it’s pretty clear they must be leftwing, or else all that youthful enthusiasm, born as it is out of a profound political alienation, will look elsewhere) candidate for the future good of the country? Corbyn is a decent, principled man. He is my local MP. He cares passionately about his constituents and their struggles in the face of austerity. But practically, how can he lead a party that is not behind him? The answer, as much as it pains me, is that he can’t. And even if he could, with a snap general election looming, the job (which in my mind was to push Labour left enough that it could convincingly challenge the austerity narrative) has now changed. I don’t blame Corbyn for the leave victory – polls suggest two-thirds of Labour voters followed his recommendation to vote remain, more than did Nicola Sturgeon’s, and no one is suggesting she resign – but I do wish he had cared as passionately about Europe as I do.

As both sides of Labour’s political divide dig their heels in, we must bear in mind that Corbyn’s supporters – embittered by months and months of attempts to depose him – risk becoming as entrenched as the leave voters who had finally had enough of being ignored. There is only so long that you can flippantly disregard the needs of whole swaths of people before it results in mass political abandonment. Corbyn’s supporters are furious and the party may disintegrate at a time when poorer people and younger people alike need it more than ever. The fallout from Brexit, all those spending cuts that Osborne was talking about yesterday, are only going to make those people’s lives worse.

Whatever happens to Labour, we must fight not to lose the passion that Corbyn harnessed. This is the most excited many of us have felt about politics for many years. But it is about more than one man; it is about having a united front against a future that at present looks very dark. A snap general election, leading to an even more rightwing Tory, Ukip and Ulster unionist coalition? It could happen. Think about that before you cut up your membership card, or decide to vote Lib Dem (tempting with their new manifesto promise, I’ll admit, and not a course of action I am entirely ruling out myself), or give up altogether. We desperately need more young voters, not fewer. Yes, what has happened to Corbyn is bleak, but unless we rally, things could get bleaker.