In 2016, as I travelled up to the Labour party conference in Liverpool, there was no doubt that this was a party on the verge of a civil war.

Reeling from Brexit, a second leadership contest in 12 months, an unprecedented motion of no confidence in which 85% of Labour MPs said all in all, they'd rather anyone else were leader but him, there was no pretending any more. The bile was laid bare for all to see.

What a difference a year makes.

In 2017 strife has been replaced by solidarity. The party is - on the surface at least - more united than it has been for years.

But Mr Corbyn's detractors are still here. They roam the conference halls. They prop up the bars. They mourn a party which in two years has slipped through their fingers.


Tom Watson: Labour united over rule changes

They are at odds with their leader as vehemently as ever - but for the first time they are neutered.

When Jeremy Corbyn became leader, many on the right of the party consoled themselves in thinking it would be a temporary interlude between sensible leaders.

Either Corbyn would self-destruct and they would take over again, or an election would so humiliate him that he would have to resign - and they could pick up the pieces.

Nobody can argue now that Corbynism is a blip. The election guarantees its permanent infusion into Labour's blood stream. It is now as transformative as Blair and New Labour's reforms of the 1990s. It is embedding itself in two key ways.

Corbyn at mass rally on the eve of party conference

The first is by way of changes to the party's structures. It has been a long standing objective of the Corbyn wing of the party to change the rules around the election of the leadership and lower the number of MPs needed to nominate a candidate for that office.

At present it's 15% but the Corbynistas want it down to 10% and potentially to allow other groups to nominate: members, trade unions and other affiliated bodies.This will guarantee a Corbynite candidate for years to come.

Had they proposed that this time last year, the blood would have been on the walls. This year it will go through on the nod, with little dispute.

There will be other reforms too - possibly mandatory re-selection. A "party democracy review" is being set up which would further strengthen the ability of party members to shape policy and create a second deputy leader (weakening the power of incumbent deputy and Corbyn foe Tom Watson).

:: Burnham hits out at conference speech banishing

:: Abbott backs two-year Brexit transition plan

But perhaps even more importantly, the left has won a crucial psychological victory over the story the Labour party tells itself about British politics.

Before this year, the Labour right was in permanent orbit of their two guiding stars: 1983 and 1997.

Any argument about the political direction of the party could be stopped by the eternal proof that Labour at its most leftward was annihilated in 83 and at its most centrist won its biggest majority ever in 97.

You just can't win from the left, they said.

Now the left have a date of their own to point to: 2017.

Abbott: Labour committed to Brexit transition period

The year the party didn't win from the left but didn't exactly lose either. The year when after every expert predicted an overall Tory majority, Labour added 3 and half million votes and 30 seats. It confounded every expectation.

That victory has stunned and silenced the right and given a potent shot of adrenaline to the left. It armour plates them rhetorically and politically. It gave Mr Corbyn political capital and now he's spending it.

The one blip on this starry horizon is the Brexit behemoth. It is the one opening the pro-European right of the party has.

It is noxious for Corbyn because it is the sole area where the left itself is divided and the moderate pro-EU MPs are closer to Labour members than Corbyn is.

A particular danger comes with inconsistencies in the Labour position as we have seen on Sunday.

Before 8am Diane Abbott told me she was "content" with the idea of a two year transition period after Brexit. Later in the morning Corbyn said he didn't think you could put a figure on it.

Keir Starmer had previously indicated it would be between three and five years but potentially indefinitely.

This is exactly the sort of opacity Corbyn can't afford. It will divert attention from the Government's own divisions and allow pro-EU moderates an opening on his weakest flank.

Corbyn would be wise to close it down and quickly because this opportunity - total control of the Labour party - has never come to the left before.

They know if they play their cards wisely, the prize is never losing it. Let there be no doubt: it's Corbyn's party now.