Labour’s lost moderate MPs adopt ‘sleeping crocodile’ strategy

One of the reasons this seems to be the happiest Labour Party conference in a long time is that there is very little conflict between the two very different factions in the party. Before the snap election, it seemed as though Labour was going to split – or at least that what was left of it after an electoral drubbing was going to split. But the result meant that the Corbynites have won the argument and sealed their ownership of the party. The factions aren’t at war any more.

The most obvious symbol of this victory is the way MPs haven’t been given passes for the conference floor. Some argue that conference has always been about the chance for members to speak, rather than parliamentarians to pontificate at even greater length than they do in Westminster. But the sidelining of the parliamentary Labour Party after its outspoken opposition to Jeremy Corbyn was inevitable following Corbyn’s victory.