Spirit of Corbynism ran through SCG rally, but can it take root again a decade on?

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Speakers paid tribute to the former leader — now parliamentary leader of Your Party — and pointed out that at both elections he led Labour into it had won far more votes than in 2024 under Keir Starmer.

Blyth & Ashington MP Ian Lavery stressed the huge size of the Labour Party under Mr Corbyn — roughly three times its current membership — and was among several calling for a drive to increase numbers again to strengthen the hand of left councillors and MPs.

The main policies of the Corbyn years — taxing the rich, nationalising the commanding heights of the economy, a foreign policy promoting peace and international law — remain popular, and are not worlds away from the new PM’s rhetoric, if not his actual commitments.

But it is unclear if a generation bruised by the Labour machine’s purges and stitch-ups, which has largely walked away from Labour, will be motivated to return. Many former Corbynistas have joined the Greens, a phenomenon largely unexamined at both the TUC and Labour conferences.

Still, the meeting was upbeat, and Mr Lavery assured the assembled lefties that despite the tough times “we always win in the end.”

It seemed a rose-tinted assessment of the British left’s record. “We always win, do we?” I murmured as the meeting closed.

“In the end,” the comrade next to me grinned. “It’s not the end yet.”

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