There are probably fewer Trotskyists in Britain today than at any time since an ice pick was plunged into the skull of Leon Trotsky almost exactly 76 years ago. There were once Trotskyist groups in Britain with thousands of members: the Workers’ Revolutionary party (defunct), the Socialist Workers’ party (more irrelevant than ever) and Militant (deceased, with a noisy but shrivelled successor party). The political significance of British Trotskyism is minimal. Its influence is mostly confined to blocking entrances to political events with aggressive paper-sellers, and asking questions at political meetings which are really long-winded pre-prepared statements that achieve little other than driving other attendees to think “oh god, what am I doing with my life?”

If you want to understand the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon in good faith, there is little value in the discussion of entryism that has been taking place over the last week. Now, to be absolutely clear, Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, did not say that the hundreds of thousands of new members who have transformed Labour into Europe’s biggest progressive party were Trotskyists. He said a “small number of people” were, and suggested there were “some old hands twisting young arms”. My experience of young Labour members is that they have a huge capacity to think for themselves and develop their own politics. That aside, Watson highlighting efforts by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) to get involved in the Labour party will undoubtedly fuel a media narrative that Labour is falling under the spell of revolutionary zealots.

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Even under Tony Blair’s leadership, there were Trotskyist groups involved in the Labour party, ranging from the AWL to Socialist Action. Undoubtedly some of them see the Corbyn surge as a fantastic recruitment opportunity, or the next stage in fomenting the kind of revolution that has never taken place in a single western country. Some Trotsykists who, a year and a half ago, were berating me for being a rightwing sellout for suggesting Labour was the left’s best bet are now berating me for being a rightwing sellout for showing insufficient loyalty to the Labour leadership. But in the grand scheme of things, they are just irrelevant. Most of Labour’s membership influx would probably struggle to even define Trotskyism. They believe in things like public ownership of rail, higher taxes on the rich, improved workers’ rights and investment rather than cuts. Trotsky’s transitional demands it ain’t. In the 1970s such beliefs would have been regarded as pretty timid social democracy. There are too few Trotskyist activists to have any decisive impact on a party as big as Labour now is.

And then there’s Labour party millionaire donor Michael Foster’s description of Corbyn supporters in the Mail on Sunday this weekend as “Nazi stormtroopers”. As the Jewish Voice puts it, such a suggestion is “dangerous, offensive and cynically exploits fear”. Comparing politically enthused democratic socialists to murderous paramilitaries employed by a genocidal totalitarian regime that slaughtered leftists: well, frankly, it’s diabolical.

A large chunk of the Labour party membership believe that they are at war with the party’s old order. They are furious. The more they feel insulted and belittled, the stronger their support for Corbyn. And with these distractions, the party is being denied a debate on the issues. The Corbyn campaign’s floating of a cradle-to-grave national education service is a good example. How can Labour win over older Britons who have turned away from the party in great numbers? What does the party have to say to the growing ranks of the self-employed? How will it tackle the triple whammy of a lack of social housing, an unregulated private rented sector and collapsing home ownership? And, yes, how can a Labour leadership with such disastrous poll ratings turn them around and prevent the party being wiped out at a possible snap election?

Labour is in the midst of a civil war that threatens its future existence. All sides have a responsibility to prevent the party from disappearing. And a start would be to calm down the rhetoric and stick to the issues. Otherwise the party will become a freakshow existing for the entertainment of the Conservative party.