Starmer, Corbyn and a big-screen Bernie Sanders: Journey to the centre of the Labour conference

The Labour Party conference in Brighton was expected to be deeply fractious, with both sides of the party pulling in different directions. Miles Ellingham was on the ground, moving between the two

Leader Keir Starmer gives his keynote speech at conference on Wednesday (PA)

The Labour Party conference is made up of two distinct worlds. One is the formal domain of the delegates, media, commercial interests and party politicians. This world is enclosed by security checks and ruled by lanyards. Contained within the Brighton Centre, the Grand Hotel and Hilton Metropole, this is a place of incremental deliberation, where politics is localised – often to a single room – and political leadership makes impassioned, carefully scripted speeches to huge audiences.

The other world looks and feels more like a music festival. Just down the road at the Old Steine Gardens, within large colourful tents, an education project called The World Transformed (TWT) sets up a space for the young, the radical and the alienated of the left to come and participate in politics.

During the Corbyn years, these two worlds, one organiser told me, had felt woven together – now, however, that connection has been severed. Leaving the station and stepping on to Surrey Street, the very first words I hear come from a young woman selling a copy of Socialist Appeal: “This is the paper Starmer doesn’t want you to read!”