The disconnect between the PLP (and the outgoing National Executive) and the the Labour Movement, which is by far the largest political force in the country, is now all but unbridgeable, whoever is leader. This latest appeal against a common sense judgement in order to deny votes to legitimate members over a later change of date rules, is petty, extravagant and so far away from the problems in the North East or other forgotten areas of the former industrial super-power, as to amount to a declaration that New Labour has lost the plot entirely. Talk of Trotskyite infiltration is such balderdash that people who utter it reveal they simply have no idea where real politics, which matter to real people, now are.
Wherever Jeremy Corbyn goes he is greeted by cheering crowds, not energized like this for a generation. The chances of Owen Smith winning are slim but in politics anything is possible. What is not possible in the modern world is a bunch of researcher turned MPs, without a dirty fingernail between them, acting as ‘we know best’ representatives of a new kind of politics of which they have no comprehension. The first thing the new leader will have to do is solve that conundrum. No guesses for the easy way to do that.
Meanwhile there is a big clue in the Brexit vote. It contained 3 million Leave voters who had either never voted before or not done so for years, part of the 5 million cohort that New Labour dumped on its way to celebrity and spin. The other clue is that very many of the new members backing Corbyn are young, ambitious, well educated and determined to change the direction of travel of the most unfair economic settlement seen for more than a century. You can work the rest out.