The tragic irony is that Jeremy Corbyn and his inner circle are desperately seeking to construct their own, alternative, cultural hegemony within the Labour Party; to impose their own values and push out any others.

The Corbyn project constructs its own narrative, and pushes it hard. Jeremy Corbyn says Labour were leading the polls in May; this is a lie. In the same hustings he denied saying Article 50 should have been invoked the day after Brexit; this was also a lie. He claims that his meetings with the IRA in the 1980s were merely the actions of a man seeking peace; Alex Massie rebuts this one. The pro-Corbyn website The Canary pushes conspiratorial nonsense extremely successfully.

Those who object to this narrative are “Blairites”, “Red Tories”, and should join another party. MP’s who speak out of line are threatened with deselection or abused, either online or perhaps at one of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign events. As David Hirsh brilliantly notes, rather than seeking to win opponents over, Corbyn’s faction seeks to define them as not belonging, not Labour.

The fiction is sustained. Despite polls showing that Labour voters prefer Theresa May to Jeremy Corbyn, or that Corbyn is the most unpopular Labour leader in seventy years, some continue to blame the PLP for everything that has gone wrong.

If we’re talking false consciousness, this is a good place to start.

Gramsci

The Tory right is emboldened. Brexit has won. A “compassionate Conservative” leader that many members and MP’s never quite took to their hearts has gone. Theresa May knows full well that, with a majority of just twelve, she needs to keep an eye on her backbenchers. Already she has thrown the right some red meat in the form of grammar schools, and she has set up a body aimed at giving MP’s more say over policy in the hope of staving off rebellions. May‘s main concern is the MP’s on the benches behind her, not those across the floor.

Then there’s UKIP. Although the current leadership election is descending into farce, they could well pose a significant threat at the next election. Before failing to make the ballot, Steven Woolfe was speaking of his aim to take Labour seats in the North and the Midlands; many Labour MP’s are in seats which voted Leave in the EU referendum, and may be vulnerable. If UKIP survives, it will be a significant threat to a Corbyn-led Labour Party uninterested in fighting for those voters, yet if it implodes, Theresa May stands to benefit.

The oft-repeated opinion that the Tories and/or UKIP are somehow scared of Jeremy Corbyn is utterly laughable. For Theresa May, and for whoever succeeds Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn is the Labour leader of their dreams.