Labour has split before – can its big heart withstand the current ructions? | Martin Kettle

The real question for the Corbyn-era Labour movement is whether it can adapt to new times where the working class are no longer seen as the engine of social change

The current power struggle over Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership may split the Labour party. If that happens then 2016 can be added to the resonant earlier splits that shaped Labour’s sense of itself. The two pre-eminent precedents are 1931, when Ramsay MacDonald and part of the parliamentary party went into a national government with the Conservatives and some Liberals, and 1981, when the Social Democrats walked away from Labour’s increasingly leftwing push and merged eventually, most of them, with the Liberals.

Related: Whether Jeremy Corbyn goes or not, Britain’s progressives need to stick together | Frances Ryan

Related: Labour mutineers are betraying our national interest | Len McCluskey

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