His margin of victory, 61.8% to the 38.2% taken by Owen Smith, his opponent, was not as large as some of his supporters might have hoped, but it was convincing.
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And the decision to kick the issue into the long grass is likely to make it more hard for Mr Corbyn to persuade critics who quit his frontbench team in June to return. The attempt to dislodge him failed dismally.
Defiant moderates attended a packed rally of the Labour First movement to hear warnings that the party’s future existence is at risk as well as pleas for centrists to stay and fight rather than quit or defect in protest at Mr Corbyn’s re-election. Mr Corbyn’s praetorian guard, Momentum, however, may now feel at liberty to go on the offensive…
“We have won Labour parliamentary representation from Kier Hardie onwards and we do that by working together and those values have not changed and are alive and well in every single one of us in the party”.
Mr Hatton said the event seemed “very like it was” in the main conference hall but added that many people remain in the party “who are disconnected” from ordinary people.
The timing could not have been worse, coming just hours before an emotional tribute in the conference hall to Labour MP Jo Cox, who was killed after being shot and stabbed in her Batley and Spen constituency in June. Corbyn said the issue of shadow cabinet election was open for discussion but refused to commit to the demands, saying it was part of a wider debate about how to increase democracy in the party.
The Streatham MP was said to have been urged to mount a challenge to Mr Corbyn, with some MPs considering him to be Labour’s only “realistic” chance of winning in 2020.
At a fringe meeting within the conference, former shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy warned that traditional supporters were “moving away” from the party, which risked following the old Liberals into irrelevance if it “stands still while the world around (it) changes”.
The main Labour party conference got underway today, Sunday, following yesterday’s emphatic result for the leader who says he is confident he can unite the party and said: “The leadership election is over, let’s move on”. Now it is far more serious than that. “If the Labour Party splits, it could be the end of the Labour Party”.
“The relationship between an MP and their constituency is a complex one, not necessary a policy tick-box exercise”. “I recognise that to be successful, the party has to reach out to all sections and I will do that”, he said.
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“I’m Jewish and I’m very strongly Jewish and I make no bones about it and there’s no doubt in my mind that Jeremy himself is very lukewarm on this subject”, Lord Mitchell told the BBC on Sunday.
