The end of Labour Students is actually a sign that Corbynism is waning

The left may be nervous about losing its grip on power, but the moderates have not yet shown they understand what it will take to win Labour back

Labour Students started the careers of centrist figures in the party such as Tom Watson (pictured) (Getty)

Student politics barely matter to most students and really shouldn’t matter to anyone more than two years out of university or college. Anyone who thinks too much about the complex voting system of a student organisation they've long since left is not the kind of person you want to be stuck with at a party.

Yet decision of the Corbyn-controlled National Executive Committee (NEC) to scrap Labour Students – long a Blairite thorn in the leader of the opposition's side – shows an acceleration of a party takeover project that may, in fact, hint that the Corbynites' time is now limited. The NEC appears to be racing to make as much structural change as possible to benefit the left of the Labour Party, so this latest move is worth a little examination.

Labour Students is an affiliated socialist society and the representative body within Labour for students. It also has a fairly long history of high levels of internal control over how its elections were managed, which left many feeling disenfranchised – and many university Labour clubs disaffiliated from it as a result. But one faction of the party ousting another offers no guarantee that what comes next will be any more democratic.

Central party control, so loathed by modern Corbynites during the Blair years, has been deployed ruthlessly under Corbyn. This latest move may be talked about it terms of democracy and legitimacy, but it's really about consolidating the left’s grip on the levers of power. Whatever replaces Labour Students will probably fulfil the current organisation’s principle function: turning out hoards of keen volunteers during elections. The only reason non-students care about the fate of Labour Students is that, in its current form, it either benefits or harms the faction of the party they ally with – and the individuals their faction then sets up for plum political careers. (Labour Students was instrumental in the early careers of Tom Watson and Peter Mandelson.)

This raises an important question: why the urgency to scrap this organisation right now?

The decision clashes with one taken at the same meeting not to devolve reselection powers to Wales, as well as the rather cavalier decision (considering there's a general election on the horizon) to forge ahead with trigger ballots and selection freezes. These decisions have no internal coherence – unless they are seen as a bid to maintain the left faction’s grip on internal power. Recent internal votes have dutifully elected a slate of left candidates every time; there is little doubt this will now continue in the short term.

Yet the numbers participating in these internal Labour elections have reduced sharply, which may indicate a dropping off of enthusiasm among the membership for such internal fights. If Corbyn stumbles at the forthcoming general election, and Labour loses seats, that lack of enthusiasm could increase rapidly.

The real problem is that Labour is not really offering any alternative. While think tanks such as IPPR (which is still quite close to Corbyn, and even closer to John McDonnell) is still producing important policy work, there doesn't seem to be much new thinking on the moderate wing of the party. Just tactical battles, which they keep losing.

Corbynism may be waning, but it won't go anywhere without a replacement. The question is still what will that be, and who has the impetus to offer it. The left may be nervous about losing its grip on power, but the moderates have not yet shown they understand what it will take to win the Labour party back.

There is a vacuum forming. Watching who works out how to fill that will be far more interesting and important to the future of our politics than who runs the next incarnation of Labour Students.