There's lots of "should I stay or should I go?" on my timeline at the moment re. Labour. It's important to bear in mind that the new arrivals in 2015 form part of a large, floating constituency of people who grasp the implications of the 2008 crisis, the climate crisis and ...
... were drawn to direct action (UK Uncut, Occupy) and electoralism (remember the Green surge?) at various times. Labour's establishment left the door open to these people and they rushed in to support Corbyn, along with existing left members, and re-joiners.
This floating constituency includes a number of different traditions - red, black and green. But if it has a core commitment it is to democracy, however that's glossed. It doesn't identify with Labour necessarily and seemed to treat Corbynism as something else to try.
What's interesting is that this constituency *still* doesn't have an institutional home, an organisation that embodies its demands for deep participatory democracy in its own structures, and can act as a base of operations to pursue democratisation throughout civil society.
Without its own centre of gravity this constituency will wait, and rush towards anything that seems to offer a chance to escape from our media-fuelled death spiral. There will be an air of desperation to these sudden movements because - quietly or not - we are desperate.
FWIW, I think Labour is the only plausible contender for UK state power that isn't the Conservative party. But the only plausible route to a Labour government equal to the demands of the moment is to transform the social and communicative terrain on which it operates.
There's an 'inside' element to that, and an 'outside' element. But these elements meet in an institutionally grounded campaign to democratise every institution in civil society we can get our hands on, to the point where lumpen Labour MPs have to do as they are told.
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