The Labour Party is facing the greatest crisis in its history. Nine months after the historic election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership, a disastrously botched coup attempt saw 75 percent of the Parliamentary Labour Party united in a failed attempt to dislodge him, by passing a vote of no confidence in his leadership. Such a vote has no constitutional authority in the party, whose leader can only be removed by a successful challenge.

Several weeks on, a leadership election is underway, and despite blatant attempts by right-wing party officials to gerrymander the electorate, all that the coup attempt seems to have achieved is a massive further influx of members and supporters to the party, largely (though not exclusively) motivated by the desire to support Corbyn.

Evidently, the Labour members of parliament (MPs) who staged the coup attempt genuinely believed that Corbyn would see his position as untenable and that the membership would accept this. This misunderstanding of the situation proceeds directly from the more general inability of the British political class to grasp what was at stake in Corbyn’s election as Labour leader or in the wider political crisis of which it was only one symptom.