Owen Smith would be so much worse than Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader – and not just because of his Leadsom-like naivety

Smith explicitly declares himself a Corbynite and says he supports Jeremy's principles and policies; he'd apparently just be a better advocate for them. Well, Owen, that's really not good enough

Only those who register as supporters before 5pm on Wednesday can vote in the leadership election (Getty Images)

Could Owen Smith actually be worse than Jeremy Corbyn? I feel foolish even asking the question. Labour MPs, who see both men close up and personal, have obviously made their minds up. Figures such as Angela Eagle put party first and tried to work with Corbyn, but eventually got fed up. The chorus started by Hilary Benn a few hours after he was sacked by Corbyn - "Jeremy is not a leader" - has become deafening. Repeated ad nauseum, that message may persuade some party members who are starting to have their doubts.

Even Corbyn's close ally Diane Abbott only rated his performance against Theresa May at Prime Minister's Questions as "fine". She blamed colleagues for not backing him with cheers and for “sulking” on the benches. Even so, it was another Corbyn flop.

On such a low hurdle, surely Owen Smith would be an improvement? Well, yes and no. From what little we've seen of him so far he doesn't seem that charismatic. I doubt Theresa May would have much trouble with him, for example, and his remarks about Viagra suggest an almost Leadsom-like naivety. What is much more worrying – "the problem with Owen", if I might call it so – is that he explicitly declares himself a Corbynite and says he supports Jeremy's principles and policies; he'd just be a better advocate for them. Well, Owen, that's not good enough. You can have the slickest salesperson in town but if the message is poison then the public won't swallow it. And unilateralism, ramping taxes, restoring union power and being pro-EU are all electoral poison, even in some of Labour's heartlands.

All that even assumes that most of the parliamentary party would unite harmoniously behind Smith. They wouldn't. Chuka Umunna, Dan Jarvis, Keir Starmer, Hilary Benn and others would find themselves being continually talked up as better leaders. The party would remain split on defence and the economy. They would still not have a clue about tackling Ukip, let alone the Tories. Smith doesn't even have the base to face them down. The Corbynistas in defeat would be bitter and disruptive.

But could Smith actually be worse? Yes, certainly. The one thing that can be said for Corbyn, acknowledged even by his worst enemies, is that he is a sincere socialist who actually believes in democratic socialism and has hardly changed his mind on anything in about 50 years (except, ironically enough, Europe, where he is again in his most comfortable surroundings: in a minority). Corbyn is your ultimate conviction politician, a man for whom principles come before power. Labour likes things that way. Pragmatic election winners such as Tony Blair and Harold Wilson stand lower than vermin in the party's pantheon. Labour loves a loser.

Not just because he is Welsh and young-ish, Owen Smith reminds me of Neil Kinnock. And I suspect that, if he got the leadership, Smith would like to emulate Kinnock. In 1983 – when Corbyn got into parliament – Kinnock replaced another proper socialist, Michael Foot, and was even something of a protégé of Foot's. At the start of his term as Labour leader, and as part of his appeal, he was a unilateralist who was keen on nationalisation and higher taxes. Within a few years he was dragging his party towards the centre and closer to power: a long, bloody path. He did so with most of the party members and, crucially, the unions' support, and the unions were more sensible and powerful in the 1980s. Smith will lack that powerbase even if he wants to set out on the road to sanity, changing his mind, logic-chopping and eating his words along the way. He will look a cynical careerist, and he won't even succeed in dumping all the socialist baggage.

Kinnock could purge Militant because it was a tiny, nutty Trotskyite sect; Momentum is basically the biggest single organisation in today's Labour movement: idealisitc, motivated and digi-native. Smith and the Parliamentary Labour Party don't stand a chance.

The nightmare is just beginning.