The Labour breakaway launch was a political version of The X Factor – in the best possible way

A tiny room, the entire Westminster media, seven leather bucket seats in burnt orange and a frenzied wait, cameras fixed at the door, to see who would come through and sit on them

Whatever it does from here, The Independent Group has already changed the world.

From today, no political launch event can ever expect to go back to the old way of doing things, not after this. This was politics as imagined by Simon Cowell. Which is to say a politics which has worked out that, with the right contrived narrative devices, you can make almost anyone look like they’ve got the X factor.

What a concept it was. A tiny room. The entire Westminster media. Seven leather bucket seats in burnt orange and a frenzied wait, cameras fixed at the door, to see who would come through and sit on them.

So utterly showbiz was the whole affair that, when The Magnificent Seven finally strode in and up on to the stage in single file, not even the loud whispers of “Who’s that?” could diminish them.

Berger. Gapes. Shuker. Umunna. Leslie. Smith. Coffey. Some of these names may be familiar to you. Some may not. Some may soon be doing public appearances at provincial nightclubs for three quid a selfie. But for now, who cares?

They have quit the Labour Party. They have a new name – The Independent Group. And they took it in turns to spell out why they’ve done so, weaving a tapestry of personal and British social history that stretched back over half a century but in the end spelt out just two words: Jeremy Corbyn.

They were not, for the most part, household names. Nor did they have any policies to offer. Policies would be something that could come next. Chuka Umunna even said such things could be “crowdsourced”. But none of that means that the words they spoke were anything other than pure, fresh air.

Angela Smith said that “the whole political system is broken”. That there is currently “no major political party fit for government”.

Mike Gapes spoke of how he had first joined the Labour Party almost 50 years ago. But that the party he joined no longer existed.

“We did everything we could to save it,” said Chris Leslie. “But it has been hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left.”

Luciana Berger accidentally announced herself as the “Labour member of parliament for Liverpool Wavertree.” She is no such thing, not anymore. She was here to announce her resignation. “I have come to the conclusion the party is institutionally antisemitic,” she said. And having been the victim of a near constant stream of antisemitic abuse online for months if not years, she more than anyone, would know.

They are right to say that British politics is entirely broken. It’s impossible to avoid that, for the meantime, this gang of seven now independent backbenchers, who will not be fighting by-elections they would almost certainly lose, do not have any answers.

British politics just can’t cope with Brexit, the most divisive political event that has ever happened, creating a divide across the country that no party can hope to breach.

They’ve invited Tories, Liberal Democrats and others to join them, but British politics is tribal, and who votes for a party that’s got members of every tribe in it? We don’t know yet because it’s never been tested.

But whatever happens, it was nevertheless, a small gang of politicians, standing up and speaking what they believe to be the truth. There were no lies about the wonders of Brexit. There were no attempts to shift the conversation beyond the only aspect that matters. No equivocation, no distraction. No one was there to work any angles.

It was just a straightforward statement that things have to change, even though they almost certainly won’t.