John McDonnell: the fascists are in government

With Labour ahead in the polls by around 15 points, and the party seemingly on course to win a general election next year, you would think it would be all sunshine and smiles at the Labour conference, held in Liverpool.

It appears though that some of the party are less than happy with the current situation they find themselves in. Yesterday, at a packed fringe event at conference, the Labour Assembly Against Austerity and the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs gathered to discuss ‘Socialist Solutions to the Tory Crisis’ – but predominantly seemed occupied with the dreadful thought that the party might actually get elected.

Chief among the naysayers was Zarah Sultana MP, who didn’t exactly dispel her reputation for sounding like a student politician, when she informed the room that she tells people all the time that: ‘politics is a bit s***, innit’, and expressed her displeasure at the idea that ‘corporates’ were sponsoring conference events.

Other featured speakers included Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who led a group ‘solidarity Diane Abbott’ chant, after Abbott lost the whip in April for her musings on anti-Semitism in a letter to the Guardian (Abbott later said she sent the wrong draft of a letter in).