Labour's right-wing are bereft of hope after Jeremy Corbyn cemented control in Brighton

'While they are complaining things are moving on, they are getting left behind'

The dynamic of this year’s conference was not just the victory of the left over the right, but of the leadership and membership over the parliamentary party (Getty)

It was September 2015 that those on Labour's right suffered the shock of seeing the most ardent left-wing backbencher - someone they never would have dreamed would become leader - brush aside all opposition and snatch their party’s crown.

The shock and denial has passed, the pain and guilt trudged through. Some are still stuck with anger and bargaining. Many have moved on to stage four - depression, reflection and loneliness.

"There is just no hope at the moment. There is not anyone who can take us forward,” one figure of the Labour right said. "That's not to say there aren't people who are doing good work - there are, but there is just no one to rally around. Who would it be?”

At the suggestion that the former frontbencher and Streatham MP Chuka Umunna could be the person, he wrinkles his nose, “he's not the one, is he”.

Umunna was at least one of the MPs who was here in Brighton tirelessly working the fringes, banging the drum for the single market as the rest of the members, unions and delegates decided it was not going to be meaningfully voted on from the conference floor. That show of operational strength, turning the machinery of the party in Jeremy Corbyn’s favour so he could avoid any embarrassment at his victory conference, was the loudest statement of the completeness of his victory over his rivals.

But the dynamic of this year’s conference was not just the victory of the left over the right, but of the leadership and membership over the parliamentary party, who agitated to push the leader out for 24 months before succumbing.

Another party insider connected to the right of the party said: "A lot of MPs have been notable by their absence. Some have come, and a small number have been doing a lot of events.

"But Lords too. They’re getting on with their job dutifully in Westminster, but they have not been a force here. There was an event at which in the past we would have had hundreds of Labour peers turn up. But there were barely 10 this time round."

The Progress rally on the Sunday night was once the home of the party’s ruling elite, but as The Independent’s Tom Peck wrote, there was a distant feel to this year’s event.

One Shadow Cabinet level source said: "What they are doing, it doesn't look good. They lost, but they are angry and complaining still. And while they are complaining things are moving on, they are getting left behind. They need to stop talking about how they're being treated, accept the situation as it is and start talking about what matters to people."

The Progress rally was hosted in a screen at the Odeon used to showing blockbuster movies, but it was the event across the road, where Momentum’s World Transformed event was bubbling along, that attracted the new young and idealistic members.

Two years ago Momentum was seen as a threatening shadowy force trying to infiltrate Labour, now it is an integral part of conference with Shadow Cabinet members speaking at its events every day. The degree to which Corbyn’s part of the party has won is also measured in the now willing cooperation of the front bench. Unlike with Theresa May’s Conservatives, the disagreements over Brexit have been shut out of the Shadow Cabinet room for now.

“Look at Jeremy’s Shadow Cabinet. They’re not all hard lefties,” said an individual deeply involved in the party for decades. “Emily Thornberry, Barry Gardiner, Jon Ashworth, Barbara Keeley, Tom Watson of course. They’re not on the right, but they're not people that we're shouting at rallies with Jeremy and John [McDonnell] all those years. But they are following the leader now.”

Perhaps one of the most awkward moments of this year’s conference was for deputy leader Tom Watson, the man who not long ago asked Corbyn to quit for the good of the party, attempting to lead the conference in a chorus of the Glastonbury classic “Ooooh, Je-re-my Cor-byn,” only for the crowd to largely refuse to join him.

It could have been worse, he might have been booed. No one said it was going to be easy, but it suggests there are those entering the latter stages of grief - “reconstruction” and “acceptance”.