Sketch: Corbyn thinks he’s back in business

The atmosphere in Brighton at Labour conference in the past few days has been a little odd. Tensions are clearly high – vast swathes of the membership are Remain, Corbyn is a lifelong Brexiteer. The front bench is at odds with the party leader on Brexit. And the party’s EU policy remains firmly on the fence.

Well  thank goodness for Boris Johnson, then.

Labour’s fights were rendered all but irrelevant, for now, when the Supreme Court deemed Boris Johnson’s prorogation unlawful. Everything about the atmosphere at conference changed. Corbyn now had on his hands an entirely different beast.

His keynote conference speech was bumped forward to this afternoon, originally scheduled for tomorrow, and sawn in half – the result being a much stronger and pithier performance than most observers have come to expect of Corbyn. And naturally, Boris Johnson dominated pretty much the whole thing.

So Boris Johnson broke the law, Corbyn tells the conference centre. Applause. He shut down democratic debate and eschewed accountability. Louder applause. But, he failed. Standing ovation and cheers from an audience in raptures – and he’s barely been on the stage for a minute. It became very clear to Corbyn in that moment that Boris had presented him with a lifeline: whatever the events of the previous days – internal wars right at the top of the party, deranged policy decisions, and failed coups – Boris messing up is the story. So long as Corbyn had enough fodder to bash the Tories with (and he did), the Labour conference will end on a triumphant note.

Corbyn leant into his populist tendencies. He criticised the “born to rule government of the entitled”, mused over the “elite” disdain for democracy. He gestured to the audience and said Boris “thinks he’s above us all.” He relied on an us versus them narrative – the oldest trick in the book – and it worked. But a packed out conference hall chanting the familiar “ohh Jeremy Corbyn” line didn’t let the party leader throw all caution to the wind.

Corbyn made very clear that there should be a general election, but not until the threat of no deal is completely gone. No one can’t trust the government not to spin this crisis for their own benefit, and manipulate the date of the election to drive the UK out of the EU with no deal, he said. It might be wise and cautious politics, but something about it felt off. Can Jeremy Corbyn credibly all but call the prime minister a criminal in a rousing speech, but in the same breath refuse to call a no confidence vote immediately? Apparently so.

The rest of the speech was littered with policy announcements that would have been better saved for a rainy day – flexi time for menopausal women, free prescriptions, restoring bus services across the UK, among others. They will be popular policies with traditional Labour voters and probably further afield, but they will be buried in the news of a dramatic day.

This really was one of Corbyn’s best performances to date. He seemed energised by the failures of his opponent. And the problem facing the Tories now is that it is difficult to remind people of what a shambles Labour conference has been otherwise, when Corbyn closed it with such verve. We’ll see what they come up with when parliament returns tomorrow, but if Corbyn maintains this form Johnson could be in for one hell of a shock.