On Saturday 12 September St Jeremy will ascend into political heaven and the PLP cast into the pit of eternal damnation. Well, perhaps not eternal, but for an awfully long time. And this brave talk about coups seems to have disappeared. They might as well have got Mark Thatcher to organise it. And the RESISTANCE? Those rats left that sinking ship long ago. That dreadful little fuckwit Burnham has proved he is incapable any form of leadership let alone any moral compass and has rolled over to let Corbyn’s mob tickle his tummy. Sadly, it will be a few hefty kicks to his cojones; if he had any. He thinks he will be offered the shadow chancellorship. Dream on sonny. And Ibiza Umunna is not much better. After protestations that he couldn’t serve under the man, he now, ‘for the good of the party’ would serve under him. He honestly thinks he will be offered Shadow Foreign Secretary. Well matey, Foreign Affairs are off limits for you. And if I wasn’t writing this swinging on a hammock on a beautiful Turkish beach I would be violently sick. Don’t be surprised if former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett gets that gig. In fact there are enough ambitious little Quislings (I don’t accuse Margaret of this as she will want to steer Corbyn onto a more realistic tack), only too willing to sell their souls for not so much a mess of pottage as just a mess.
The first few weeks of the Corbynistas for Labour will be like living in Eastern Germany before the wall came down. There will be purges, denunciations and back to the days when Militant Tendency entryists used to hire bedsits and take over constituency executives. There will be a reign of terror as nobody will know who is a member of the Stasi and reporting back to the whips. It is going to be hell on earth for senior officials (those who remain) at Labour HQ and terrifying for moderate MPs who will face deselection. Many will go quietly and collect their pensions. But who will be prepared to fight like Frank Field did all those years at Birkenhead? The left take no prisoners and will wreak revenge upon the class traitors; anyone who thinks that Blair is less than the anti Christ. And where will the Labour asylum seekers go? It’s too early to call.
There will be an awful lot to speculate about. What will Corbyn wear at the Cenotaph? Will he lay a wreath? Will be wear a white poppy? Will he rock up at all? Whose telephone call of congratulation will he take first? Obama, Hamas, Putin? Despite his Privy Council oath what intelligence material can he be trusted with? One thing is certain. He will not get an invitation to Washington. And where will his first overseas trip be to? Greece or Gaza?
Then there is the press. Apart from Owen Jones (discuss) who will support him? Polly out of loyalty will give him a spin but will soon tire. Perhaps Johan Hari might be resurrected from his journalistic grave. And who will be the first to get a cut and paste biography to the presses?
So many questions, yet so few answers. But the biggest one is this. Will Corbyn be received as a political visionary or simply the Worzel Gummage of the left; a scarecrow frightening off the majority of voters. Only time and Peter Kellner will tell.
