Jeremy Corbyn re-elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party

Political commentators have already described Saturday’s result as historic, saying it takes control of the party from its Westminster-centric parliamentary group and has given it to ordinary followers at grassroots level.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn celebrates his election victory in Liverpool today. “Kezia Dugdale has repeatedly attacked Mr Corbyn in recent weeks but we know that her own deputy and many members of her team have urged the party to back him and his brand of hard left politics”.

Lord Mitchell, who is Jewish, said that he would quit over the leader’s handling of the anti-semitism row.

On the eve of the conference, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism accused Mr Corbyn of using his office to “normalise” anti-Semitism after a promotional video appeared on his campaign website in which supporters answered questions on topics they were “tired of hearing” about, including whether they promote anti-Semitism.

Corbyn took 62 percent of the vote, beating challenger Owen Smith in an election that was forced after Labour lawmakers in the House of Commons voted 172-40 that they had “no confidence” in Corbyn and resigned en masse from his team of spokesmen, known as the shadow cabinet.

Their civil war against Corbyn started when MP Angela Eagle launched a bid for the leadership in an attempt to show Corbyn the door. “Let’s wipe that slate clean from today and get on with the work we’ve got to do as a party together”.

I asked Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, if he thought the leadership challenge had been a good democratic exercise and he said it had. Owen Smith received 193,229 votes.

And in a massive thumbs-down for the newly re-elected Labour leader even Labour supporters think he’s destined to lose. If Labour is to return to Government it needs to restore its strength in Scotland, where it only has one MP, and in Wales, where it can not afford to see its fortunes fade. “Britain isn’t waiting for Labour to catch up; it’s us who need to catch up with Britain”.

Corbyn increased his vote share from the 59.5 percent he received on his initial election previous year, when he put an anti-austerity, anti-nuclear agenda at the forefront of British politics for the first time in a generation.

Supporters flock to rallies where he speaks and try to convince their friends online and in person that he offers the best hope for the country.

The Conservatives said Mr Corbyn’s re-election would not end the “bitter power struggle” within the opposition.

But while a Corbyn win seems fairly predictable, the future of the party looks precarious.

“They (MPs) have no need to worry at all because it is all about democracy”.

The result will be announced in Liverpool on Saturday, but few are predicting that it will help to settle the deep divisions in the party.

There has been speculation that a number of critical Labour MPs, including some who resigned from Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in June over his leadership in the wake of the European Union referendum, could return in an attempt to heal the divisions over the party’s future direction.

Mr Corbyn was first elected Labour leader in September 2015, when he beat three other candidates and got 59.5% of the vote.

Looming on the horizon is a battle over how Labour’s front bench team is chosen.

The policies are the same, so the test of whether Labour members have chosen the right leader is very simple.

Ironically it could be Prime Minister May who blows the whistle on Labour’s warring faction. Corbyn has recently detailed plans to mobilise this movement by creating “organising academies” across the country which could turn it into a real fighting force at the next general election.