Is the Labour party ready to abandon ‘Corbynism’?

As Labour prepares to say goodbye to Jeremy Corbyn, if not yet ‘Corbynism’, it is possible to put his time as party leader into perspective.

Initially hailed as marking a break with the ‘centrist’ status quo and a response to grass-roots radicalism provoked by austerity, Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader actually fits a pattern of behaviour observable throughout Labour’s existence. For if the party has changed in numerous ways since it was founded in 1900 one thing remains unaltered: the civil war over what it ultimately stands for. Over decades, members have argued about whether Labour’s objective is to reform society through winning power in Westminster; or socialist transformation through the embrace of extra-parliamentary action. Sometimes it seems as if that war has been finally won – Blair thought so – but that’s just a trick of the eye.

When the party’s Parliamentarians generally held the levers of power, usually thanks to the support of pragmatic trade union leaders, Labour charted the more moderate course.