Dan Hodges

Surviving the purge

The purges might go on for years

issue 05 September 2015

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[/audioplayer]How long does it take to rebuild a political machine? Twelve months? Two years? Three years? Maybe it can’t be done at all.

Jeremy Corbyn has won. Everyone within Labour’s ranks acknowledges that now. The issue concentrating minds is how long it will take to remove him, how bloody the process of removing him will be and how much effort it will take to repair the damage once he has been removed — assuming the damage is reparable.

This is why Labour MPs are thinking about the machine. Perhaps one or two innocent souls within the Parliamentary Labour Party think it will be over by Christmas — that the wider party (including, presumably, its new members) will come to its senses and Labour MPs will swiftly isolate their new leader before moving in for the kill.

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