All eyes on Corbyn as Labour put on a show of unity for new leader

Thousands of delegates will flood into Brighton and Hove at the weekend ahead of leader Jeremy Corbyn’s first address to the party on Tuesday.

Corbyn, who entered the leadership race as a 500/1 outsider, will take to the Brighton Centre stage to define himself – and redefine his party – to the country.

However, he has failed to win support from all in his party, and if reports are true warring factions are baying for blood.

Nancy Platts, chairwoman of Brighton and Hove Labour, said there would be unity at conference.

She said: “Everyone is looking forward to what Jeremy Corbyn has to say. I think everyone wants to unite behind Jeremy and the new shadow cabinet team.”

The conference returns to Brighton after relocating to Manchester last year, following an election which saw it all but wiped out in the south of England.

Eleven thousand delegates and volunteers will start arriving on Sunday for speeches, debates and fringe meetings, for what may be the political and social highlight of their year.

Peter Kyle, MP for Hove, described the conference as a “festival of politics”.

He said: “People will be excited to see friends, listen to interesting people and come away with a sense of what’s happening across the left at this time.”

More than 500 fringe events will take place around the city between Sunday and Wednesday, including a youth event organised by Young Labour activists and a meeting of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Mr Corbyn, who has supported unilateral disarmament throughout his career, will address the group on Monday on the eve of his first conference speech.

Although he has campaigned to scrap Britain’s nuclear deterrent, Trident, he has also offered to moderate his position in line with his shadow cabinet, which political experts expect to set the tone for the conference.

Dr Mark Devenney, director of the centre for politics, philosophy and ethics at the University of Brighton, said: “I think he will hold back from saying anything too controversial which will mean the critics hold back.

“There will be some backstabbing comments from former Blairites but for the most part the party will put on a united front.”

Peter Kyle MP, who is now one of the only Labour MPs in the whole of the south of England, avoided the issue of unity and electability.

He said: “I’m really proud to be showing off the city I live in and love.

“I’ve been telling colleagues where to go out in Hove – they have to have a drink in the Connaught pub and there are some fantastic Iranian restaurants on Church Road.”

A CONTENTIOUS CONFERENCE COULD SPLIT CORBYN’S PARTY

THE eyes of the political world are fixed on Brighton with the most eagerly anticipated party conference for a generation set to kick off on Sunday.

There have been conferences which have made political leaders.

Margaret Thatcher stood here just a year into her premiership and told the world “the lady’s not for turning,” promising to stick to her economic policy in the face of howling opposition and spiralling unemployment.

There have been conferences which have cursed political parties.

Gordon Brown’s gun-shy refusal to call an election amid frenzied speculation at conference in 2007 began a long decline which culminated in the election of the Coalition government.

But this year’s Brighton Conference has the potential to define both a new leader and a reborn party.

“It’s going to be like no other Labour Party conference in history,” said Dr Mark Devenney, director of the centre for politics, philosophy and ethics at the University of Brighton.

“The Labour Party has elected probably the most radical leader since the war and we don’t know whether he can carry the party and the conference with him.”

Labour conferences no longer have policy-making powers – although this is one of many Blairite changes Corbyn has suggested he will reverse. But that does not mean they are toothless.

In the hall, delegates debate headline-grabbing issues and will vote on matters of policy which will force the new shadow cabinet into publicly agreeing with, or flying in the face of, the party’s rank-and-file.

Since Corbyn is more popular among members than he is among fellow MPs, that might give him and his team an easier ride than in previous years.

For instance, the Brighton Centre will almost certainly see a majority of delegates raise their hands in favour of re-nationalising the railways – a plan Corbyn supports.

But when 64 per cent of them did that in 2004, then chancellor Gordon Brown was forced to publicly veto his party’s decision, saying it was a waste of money.

But on more contentious issues it is conceivable a serious split in the party may emerge, thicken, even crystallise over the course of the four-day event.

We could see Corbynite ideas receiving rapturous applause from some sections of the audience and frosty silence from others.

There may be heckles to speeches which challenge the new orthodoxy or warn the party not to turn too far from the legacy of the last 20 years.

And as anyone who has ever sat through an awkward Christmas dinner can attest, deep philosophical differences are easier to paper over from a distance.

When it is the person sitting next to you making your blood boil, sometimes arguments flare out of control.

This weekend the bars of the Metropole could bear witness to the opening salvoes of a Labour Party civil war which tears the party to splinters.

More likely, though, is that those who believe Corbyn is an electoral liability will fall into line while they are in town and under such intense press scrutiny.

Leader of Brighton and Hove Labour Party, Nancy Platts said: “I think everyone wants to unite behind Jeremy and the new shadow cabinet team.”

And many commentators point out that Labour, unlike the Conservatives, are unpractised at stabbing their leaders in the back.

But even if it isn’t regicidal, it won’t be dull.

The electoral challenge facing Jeremy Corbyn is huge.

The Labour Party was reduced to a single MP in its Scottish heartlands, and all but eradicated across the South of England.

It lost working-class votes to Ukip, left-wingers to the Greens, and found itself stuck in opposition having expected to be in Downing Street.

But with a new leader elected by half a million people on a radical platform, talk will not be of calculated electoral strategies for 2020 but on the vociferous opposition the party will provide in the years leading up to it.

What remains to be seen is whether Corbyn’s message will resonate beyond the echo-chamber of supporters in the Brighton Centre to the country at large.