A new leader won’t stop the far left’s domination of Labour

The far left controls the Labour bureaucracy, its National Executive Committee, its policy making, manifesto writing, many of its constituency parties, and its affiliated unions – either directly in the case of Unite, or indirectly by terrifying their leaders into complicit silence, as in the case of Unison,

If it adds the deputy leadership to its trophy cabinet, it doesn’t matter who the next Labour leader is. He or she will be a bird singing in a gilded cage. The party will remain under the far left’s control

Given these riches, its worth asking whether the far left needs the leadership. It wants it, no doubt about that. Rebecca Long-Bailey’s opponents know it will use every trick to ensure she succeeds Jeremy Corbyn. ‘We have already hired lawyers and prepared online countermeasures,’ an aide to one of Long-Bailey’s opponents told me, and I can see why they will be needed.

At this week’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (what’s left of it) Jennie Formby, Corbyn’s general secretary, told