Take a look at the odds currently being offered on the Labour leadership election and no one would blame you for seeing the incumbent's, Jeremy Corbyn, reelection by the 500,000-strong membership as anything but a foregone conclusion. Indeed this is how those on the political scene are treating the contest. Ladbrokes are offering a generous 1/8 on Corbyn whilst William Hill is taking no chances with 1/11 reflecting the absolute confidence with which many expect Corbyn to claim victory.
His rival, Welsh MP Owen Smith, has so far refused to rule out an official split in the Labour Party reminiscent of the late 1970s when staunch socialist Michael Foot was elected as leader of the party and the more moderate factions of the party broke away to form the Social Democrats. The Independent reported at the end of July that a group of rebel MPs were planning to mount a legal challenge to the Labour Party which, if successful, would see the assets of the Labour Party transferred over to the 'new party' in question. But of all the problems that would arise from a formal or informal split in the party, the legal quibbles will prove to be only half the problem.
The EU referendum and the consequent vote for Brexit shone a spotlight on the deep regional divisions that have been widening in the Labour Party not only since Tony Blair's unveiling of the electorally palatable 'New Labour' in the early 1990s but since the development of a sizable, socialist, middle class segment of the electorate in Middle England and London itself that is not only dissimilar in its values to those of the 'Old Labour' vote but outright alien to them.
Take immigration. Take globalisation. They are two issues high on the agenda but on which the middle class and working class Labour voters differ fundamentally on, with the middle class voters embracing the concept of freedom of movement, multiculturalism and a global economy whilst working class voters in areas that have fallen victim to deindustrialisation see themselves as having lost traditional jobs to the developing world and being the victims of mass immigration and its alleged impact, such as wage depression, housing shortages and long waiting times at the doctor's.
Yet the one figure in the Labour Party these two factions have in common is Jeremy Corbyn; albeit for different reasons. Corbyn's progressive stance on social issues sells him well to 'Middle Labour', if you like, yet his skepticism of globalisation and his quiet but evident eurosceptic inclinations mean he appeals to the working class Labour vote. Regardless of whether the Labour Party splits following his likely reelection next month, the veteran activist and MP will be left with an impossible task of juggling the conflicting views of Labour supporters and maintaining his support amongst the predominantly young and progressive grassroots of the party reflected by the likes of Momentum whilst simultaneously attempting to reach out to the disenfranchised Labour voters of the Red Heartlands in order to prevent a UK Independence Party (UKIP) insurgency there in future local elections and, crucially, in 2020.
Corbyn's juggling act has already begun, with him alluding to his support for some level of control on migration, presumably in an attempt to appeal to the Old Labour vote, a fortnight ago in the first televised debate with Owen Smith but simultaneously calling for Britain's nuclear deterrent to be scrapped, a policy present in Labour's 1983 general election manifesto which appeals to the progressives of the party but strikes the more traditionally minded voters of the Labour working class as absurd. At the time of it's publication a Labour MP referred to it as 'the longest suicide note in history', and the subsequent wiping out of Labour proved him to be correct.
It is quite clear that whether a split occurs or not next month, Corbyn's election won't solve the disconnect Labour suffers with its voters and may ultimately prove to bring the party's factions into direct conflict not seen for over three decades. Instead of settling the matter of the direction of the party for the foreseeable future, this leadership election may well be only the beginning of months, if not years, of internal grappling in the Labour Party.