Jeremy Corbyn has united the Brownites and Blairites after a decade of distrust, “in mutual incomprehension and alarm”, says Jim Pickard in the FT. Tony Blair has stepped up his criticism of Corbyn’s hard-left “Alice in Wonderland” politics.
Shirley Williams, the former Labour minister who helped found the breakaway Social Democratic Party in 1981, said this wasn’t an “SDP moment”. Labour moderate Chuka Umunna said, “We have to accept the result when it comes, and we’ve got to support our new leader in developing an agenda that can return Labour to office.” But how accommodating will Corbyn be?
“Those who have taken at face value Corbyn’s warm words about unleashing a new egalitarianism through his party’s ranks should brace themselves,” says Dan Hodges in The Daily Telegraph. The purity of his ideology “allows no room for dissent”.
His victory is based on shunning compromise. There is “talk of unity and moving forward”, but when he becomes leader, the only certain direction of travel is downwards. Labour MPs are trying to reassure themselves that he will moderate his policies and his rhetoric, or that he might not be around for long. They delude themselves. “The nightmare is real.”
Corbyn’s record of working with other Labour MPs isn’t good, says Patrick Wintour in The Guardian. Within days of his election he will meet his MPs, only 20 of whom ever really backed him. Two days later, he faces Prime Minister’s Questions and, a fortnight later, “four days of scrutiny” at Labour’s annual conference.
He needs to appoint a new front bench – as many as eight members of the shadow cabinet are considering declaring that they cannot serve under him. The Tory party has prepared a “parliamentary welcome in which Corybn will need to decide how to vote on a series of touchstone issues” designed to show that his support is “a million miles away from the heartbeat of the country”. The pressure is huge.