No one in the hall was in any doubt about the result, the only thing in question was the scale of Jeremy Corbyn’s victory. In the end it was overwhelming, 59.5 per cent on the first round.
Corbyn led in every single section and the scale of his triumph will make it very hard for the Parliamentary Labour Party to move against him even in the medium term. Though, large numbers of the Labour figures here today are making no effort to hide their dismay at the result.
Corbyn’s victory speech, delivered without a tie, was no move to the centre. It did contain some unifying themes, his tribute to Liz Kendall for standing up for what she believes in, but it was largely left-wing boiler plate. Corbyn spoke about us being ‘one world’, repeatedly attacked the media and talked about the ‘emotional victories’ to come. There was also a sign of how Corbyn intends to run things with his talk of making the party ‘more democratic’, something that would reduce the powers of MPs.
What makes this result even more remarkable, is that Labour lost in May because it had a leader who was too far from the political centre and not trusted on the economy.
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