Corbyn puts the EU referendum on a knife edge

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[/audioplayer]No one watching Jeremy Corbyn walk around the Palace of Westminster would imagine that he had just won the Labour leadership by a landslide. He seems to spend his time practising the blank stare he gives to television cameras, his eyes fixed firmly on the middle distance. He doesn’t seem too keen on his colleagues either. There is none of the back-slapping bonhomie that normally surrounds a new leader. When he first addressed Labour MPs, there was no cheer when he entered the room which is, for a new leader, unprecedented. Corbyn is the accidental leader. He didn’t enter this race expecting to win. At the meeting at which he decided to stand, there was no talk about the effect that the job would have on his family life. When you’re a 200/1 outsider, such discussions seem pointless. So Corbyn has been hijacked by his victory and now, to his visible discomfort, finds himself the subject of intense media scrutiny. Unwanted publicity led Chuka Umunna to pull out of the contest in May, saying he wasn’t prepared for the attention. Corbyn looks like he is realising all too late that nor is he. Yet for all the missteps of his first few days in the job, Corbyn is in a strong position. The sheer margin of his victory — he took 60 per cent of the vote — all but rules out any move against him in the near future. As one of those who has declined to serve under him points out, Labour moderates need to find a champion, then recruit supporters, before they even think about forcing a leadership contest. Both of these will take time. For their part, the Conservatives are operating on the assumption that, as one of Cameron’s confidants puts it, ‘life cannot be this kind for us for that long’ and that Corbyn will be gone soon.