I'm a reluctant Corbyn voter because Owen Smith isn't the Labour hero any of us want or need

Smith is the 'desperation' vote – but Labour can't go forward behind a leader they just voted in because he 'wasn't Jeremy Corbyn'

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (Getty Images)

I was recently running over a familiar topic with some university friends of mine whose views on Labour are a lot more Blairite than my own. I wanted their perspective on Owen Smith’s rise from nothingness to Labour leadership candidate and whether Corbyn should be consigned to the dustbin of recent Labour history. “Do you think that the previously anonymous Smith would be a better leader that Jeremy Corbyn?” was my question.

They looked back at me, exasperated at my impossible naivety. “Charlie,” they laughed, “anyone would be better than Jeremy Corbyn.” And therein lies the rub. Smith does not seem to inspire anyone on the basis of his policy, charisma or his vision of a new, progressive Britain. Instead, those who believe Corbyn has ripped apart their beloved party, united in desperation, are willing to turn to anyone in their time of need and make them their hero. Owen Smith is little more than a political vulture, feasting on the remains of Corbyn’s career.

If Smith finds himself ruling over the Labour party, he will find himself forever battling the feeling that, like Ben Affleck’s Batman, he is the hero that no one actually really wanted.

I didn’t join the Labour Party in 2015 to vote for Jeremy Corbyn, although I had watched with fascination as a mixture of general New Labour fatigue and a membership spike brought Blair’s project to a final, shuddering halt. Fuelled mainly by the enthusiasm of young people who felt that the ideologies of the two main parties were becoming inseparable, Corbyn’s plain-speaking style even won over my profoundly apolitical father: “I do just love the way he’s so honest.”

Corbyn has made mistakes. He is decidedly not the perfect Labour leader. He is not a natural orator and his leadership has been tainted by such debacles as Thangam Debbonaire’s stunning revelation that she was both hired and fired by the Labour leader without ever being informed that this was the case. The good news is Theresa May has stated that there is no plan for a snap election while Brexit’s aftermath looms over the country. Corbyn has time to learn from these errors, and legitimise his programme. Labour MPs who have the gall to sniff at Labour’s membership numbers, the best in decades, claiming they are one-time voters who are doing nothing for the party, do so while plotting against their own leader. It’s hardly inspiring.

Democratic choice wasn’t respected the first time. If Corbyn wins his second election, the engineering of coups and petty infighting must stop. A theoretical election in 2020 would give Corbyn the confidence to push forward with the grassroots projects that he has always claimed will bring him election victory, and his plans for a National Education Service seem promising. He must push for a swell in votes from young people and those around the country whose communities have suffered under Cameron and Osborne’s dogmatic adherence to austerity, but didn’t feel represented by Brown or Miliband. Provided his own party get behind him, Corbyn has a genuine chance of being Prime Minister. Stranger things are happening in politics. Just cast a glance over to our American brothers and sisters across the pond for proof of that fact.

Like Corbyn or not, reanimating the corpse of an electorally unsuccessful but more united party in the form of Owen Smith can’t be the answer. A Corbyn victory, which is looking increasingly likely, will give him the confidence to take the fight to the Tories at the next election. We can only hope that those in the Labour party who have been in a deep existential crisis since Corbyn’s first victory will throw their considerable weight behind Corbyn after his second. However bad they consider Corbyn to be, I think we can all agree that he isn’t worse than the Tories – and there are plenty of people, like my father, who will go to the ballot box for the first time in years because of him.