Michael Crick’s doggedness in exposing the Conservative election expenses scandal may have weakened Theresa May’s desire to go for an early land-grab election and so political eyes slowly turn to 2020. The Labour party has been in an internal battle for its soul since losing the last election, but Jeremy Corbyn’s continued popularity among the membership and the prospect of a snap poll led to a fragile truce. If the party steps down from election footing, the devil will find work for idle backbench hands and the leader’s position is likely to come under sustained threat again.

Labour should relish a more relaxed run-up to the election. Brexit will have had time to reap some of its bitter fruit and the Tories will have stumbled on with a small majority while tackling their own divisions over how hard and fast to pull up the UK’s drawbridge. The chancellor will have had time for a handful of budgets and reverses, which will further undermine the myth of Tory financial probity. Education cuts, middle-class kryptonite, will see school budgets decimated and Tory MPs will come under pressure from angry parents.

But instead the party looks inwards and panics over the opinion polls. I rejoined the Labour party a year and a half ago after Corbyn’s election as leader. I didn’t have my arm twisted by Trotskyists, I just finally saw a party that could make genuine changes to Britain in general and the working-class community I come from in particular.

I’m suspicious of leaders and over the years have become numb to rhetoric. Tony Blair promised me things could only get better and then broke my heart on Iraq and followed the Tories down the low-tax rabbit hole. Barack Obama spoke like an angel and charmed like a God but still made only the most minimal improvements to the lives of black Americans. Now when I look for bandwagons to jump on, I try to see beyond the winning smile and the dancing prose; I look for a leader with the right ideas and the integrity to carry them out if they get into power.

In Corbyn, Labour has a leader who has been right on every major decision throughout his political career. He’s what Tony Benn described as a signpost. I’m vice-chair of the social policy organisation Race on the Agenda and earlier this month we hosted Corbyn talking about how Labour would champion race equality. White politicians promising to tackle racial inequality should come with a truckload of salt. Pretty promises to minority communities often fade away once votes are secured. But back in 1984, Corbyn was being arrested for protesting against apartheid in South Africa. When it comes to race, I trust him. He may not be the slickest with the teleprompter, sometimes stumbling or emphasising the wrong word in the sentence, but what he says is on point and comes from his heart.

Being an unreformed ageing socialist, I’m used to being told I’m childish and idealistic. But I’m not a “deluded fan boy”; I’m not sticking my sword in the dirt and declaring “there is no king but the King in the North [Islington]”. While I am highly sceptical of opinion polls, the apparent size of the gap between the parties is daunting. A seismic shift will be needed for Labour to take power, even in 2020, but seismic shifts can happen in politics. Two years ago, Donald Trump was the punchline to a joke, George Osborne was destined to be the next Tory prime minister and Corbyn was a lovely old guy from the 1980s. We suffer from societal ADHD: forgetting what we thought yesterday and thinking that how things are today is how they will always be.

‘Corbyn has the policies to break through, including building more council houses, nationalising the railways and properly funding the NHS.’ Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The polling is frustrating because Corbyn has the policies to really break through. Building more council houses, nationalising the railways, properly funding the NHS, closing tax loopholes, defending the rights of workers. These are all popular with the public even while Corbyn himself languishes in the approval ratings.

Blaming “the media” for the Labour leader’s poor ratings might seem churlish and blinkered but I honestly can’t remember a time when every single national newspaper set its stall out against a leader of the opposition. Every comment from his allies is examined for signs of impatience and every disagreement on the left is couched in terms of his failings.

Losing the Copeland byelection is presented as an unmitigated disaster, but another way of describing it would be that Corbyn’s principled stance against nuclear power made this seat, with its 10,000 Sellafield jobs, a special case. At the same time historic wins in the City of London almost go without mention. When more than half a million people joined the Labour party to support Corbyn last year, this was dismissed as an electoral irrelevance; now that some of those people have become disillusioned and left, this is taken to be a massive indication that the Corbyn project is failing.

Corbyn, we are told, has lost the working northern vote that is Labour’s bedrock. But the working classes didn’t abandon Labour – the border moved and they found themselves sitting in no man’s land. The same Labour MPs who ignored the working classes for 30 years were now blaming Corbyn for not being able to win them back in 18 months.

But beyond the press and jittery MPs, we have to be honest about Corbyn’s failings. The main criticism, even among those who warm to his politics and integrity, is that he isn’t able to communicate his messages clearly. He hasn’t, so the charge goes, managed to present his story and himself in a way that is convincing to any but diehard supporters.

“I like him, I like his policies, I like his integrity,” they say, “but he can’t convince other people, so it’s all pointless.” I’d argue if you are on board with the policies then why not spend your energies in helping argue for them? Rather than thinking in terms of a leader coming in and doing all the work, let’s think of a movement with each of us doing our bit to bring about the changes we want. If Corbyn doesn’t give great speeches then someone else should do some of the heavy lifting. But if you can’t lend your hand, as Dylan said: “Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall.”

I can’t say all of this, though, without admitting I have a fatal flaw. I’m unbearably loyal. I’m a Liverpool fan who was still chanting for Rafa Benítez and Brendan Rodgers long after their sell-by dates had passed. While the Tories focus on playing the man instead of the ball, there is always the opportunity to pass to another player and turn the polls on their heads. Decades of a centrally controlled Labour party, however, has led to a dearth of genuine socialist options. There are some young prospects but none that are obviously placed to take up the leftwing mantle. If it turns out that Corbyn isn’t the messiah but is, in fact, John the Baptist, I’ll be relaxed.

Although from memory, it didn’t end too well for John.