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The day the Corbynistas humbled Tom Watson

Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader, with Jeremy Corbyn
Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader, with Jeremy Corbyn Credit:  Eddie Mulholland

Labour MPs are no longer permitted to sit among members inside the main hall at their party’s conference. Sounds humiliating. Given what those members think of them, though, it’s probably for their own good.

“Many Labour MPs,” fumed one delegate in the main hall in Brighton today, “[waged] what can only be called psychological warfare against Jeremy Corbyn.” The rest of the hall applauded in furious agreement.

Even outside the hall, though, MPs must sometimes feel nervous. Momentum, the fanatically loyal pro-Corbyn group, is holding a simultaneous conference of its own nearby. At one of its events today, a member demanded that Labour MPs be “politically re-educated”, because they were “anti-theoretical” and “politically illiterate”.

Still, it’s all right for those MPs considered sufficiently devoted to their leader. The most ardently committed are rewarded with their own special version of the “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” chant. “Oh, Emily Thornberry,” chorused delegates on Monday after a speech by the shadow foreign secretary. “Oh, Becky Long-Bailey,” they chorused yesterday after a speech by the shadow business secretary.

One Labour figure who will never be honoured in this fashion, I suspect, is Tom Watson – and not just because his name doesn’t fit the tune. Supporters of Mr Corbyn have been hostile to Labour’s deputy leader ever since the ill-fated “coup” of summer 2016, when he failed to defend their hero. Then, during his speech at last year’s Labour conference, Mr Watson compounded his crime by mocking one of the numerous Corbynites who heckled him.

Now, though, it seems Mr Watson is a beaten man. Because, on the main conference stage this afternoon, under the glare of the delegates, he performed the most squirmingly abject display of grovelling. Mere minutes into his speech, he actually launched into his own solo rendition of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” – and urged the hall to join in. At first warily, and then enthusiastically, it did.

But Mr Watson’s plea for mercy wasn’t finished yet. “Jeremy,” he cooed, had taught the country “we don’t need to be afraid”, and that “we can choose to live in love and hope”. Yes, “Jeremy” had “shown it was possible”. Mr Watson turned to face Mr Corbyn, who was sitting stage right. “Thank you, Jeremy,” simpered Mr Watson, wetly.

He also begged forgiveness from Mr Corbyn’s praetorian guard. Labour, he gurgled, was sure to win the next election, “now that we have the… Momentum!”

It was embarrassing. Tom Watson: the lethal fixer, the gangster-suited plotter, the West Bromwich Machiavelli, the man who brought down Tony Blair… reduced, before our eyes, to a snivelling, obsequious jelly.

Funnily enough, a recurrent theme of his speech was that we must all stop “living in fear”. I felt as if I were watching a video of a hostage victim, sweatily reassuring his family that his captors were treating him well.

I don’t know about the rest of Labour’s MPs, but it looks as though the “political re-education” of Mr Watson is complete.

 

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