‘We’re in interesting times’ – this is how moderates describe Labour’s turmoil when they want friends and family to know they are aware Labour is in a bad place but do not want to increase further the alienation from those who voted Labour at the last election, let alone from the million switchers it needs to win a future election. But the reality is: it is not interesting, it is heart‑breaking.

Two and a half million people who voted for Ed Miliband now prefer Theresa May to his successor. New members are most welcome and should be encouraged to prosper in the party – their voice is important – but there is no cause for celebration when Labour looks so distant from beating the Conservatives. And it is not ‘Tory voters’ but Labour voters who are abandoning the hard-left ship.

The Jeremy Corbyn era suffers from three fatal flaws. First is the lack of plan, or even effort, to defeat the Conservative party. Vice News’ documentary this summer revealed Corbyn refusing to attack David Cameron after Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation from the government. There is simply no drive to defeat the Tories. Oppose, maybe; beat, no.

The longer this continues the harder it will be for there ever to be a left alternative government. Not just because the British public have shown no interest in Bennite politics – let’s not forget that Michael Foot’s team let Tony Benn’s programme into the 1983 manifesto – but because the Tories are prepared to gerrymander politics against Labour. Boundary charges, cronies in the House of Lords, individual electoral registration. Working-class people who rely on Labour cannot afford this failed experiment in ‘perfecting’ Labour rather than seeking power. There is little point in being leftwing if you cannot enact leftwing policies. Already, indulgent leftism of the Miliband era delivered the first Tory majority for 23 years and with it the Trade Union Act, the Housing Act and Brexit. What follows next from the Conservatives – and outside the European Union – could be yet worse.

The second fatal flaw is where the Corbyn project has failed on its own terms. The Labour party might be bigger than ever but it is now deeply unhealthy as an entity. Corbyn demands loyalty from the parliamentary party yet commands none. Even those who were willing to put aside doubts and serve concluded that they cannot work with Corbyn; he is failing in the basic duty of leader of the opposition to scrutinise and oppose government policy (a duty that exists even before that of winning elections). The most effective part of the frontbench is in the House of Lords where Labour peers have all but declared UDI.

Meanwhile, Ken Livingstone remains a party member. Two antisemitism inquiries have been dragged into doubt and disrepute, with Jan Royall’s report suppressed and Shami Chakrabarti’s lying in tatters, unimplemented, with the author provoking scandal by accepting a peerage. Forty women Labour members of parliament write to the leader about online abuse and the National Executive Committee suspends all party meetings because of the terrible culture at a local level. Intimidation has become commonplace. A year ago, this atmosphere simply did not exist. What has changed is the leadership. Those who dissented under Miliband were not subject to the hatred that now accompanies debate. Bricks were not thrown through MPs’ windows; online threats came from the far-right, not the hard-left.

Corbyn tells people to ‘ignore it’; he drafts statements and makes proclamations, but does little. If serious, the Compliance Unit and party staff could receive extra resources; instead they are anonymously briefed against. Momentum or Corbyn for Labour – whatever the limited company’s current name is – could have set up social media accounts to demonstrate leadership to their own supporters. With accounts called ‘Corbyn Against Hate’ or ‘Not in JC’s Name’ they could contact leader-supporting haters with one simple message: ‘Delete your tweet or delete your Twibbon’. Tory-beating MP Peter Kyle explained it to George Eaton of the New Statesman: ‘What Jeremy does is, he stands passively by while bad things happen.’ Why is this a problem? Kyle captured it in one line: ‘Part of the responsibility of a leader is to proactively stop bad things from happening.’

Finally, the truth is that Corbynism – if it is a thing at all – is not a set of policies. He has had a year to outline them. But his National Education Service did not see the light of day until his re-election campaign. At the turn of the year, flagship rail policy was overshadowed by his own ‘recrimination reshuffle’, done to strengthen control of the party. In reality, what policy there is presents itself as continuity Miliband while concealing beneath it the politics and modus operandi of the revolutionary left.

None of this is any accident. The hard-left’s worldview is to wait, not to act. For its devotees, the tide of history is a long one – and they are happy to sit on the shore till it comes in and lifts them to power. And how will this happen? From turmoil, revolution can emerge and be consolidated. The hard-left expects and hopes for a confluence of seismic events – like the Scottish National party sweeping Scotland, like Brexit in England and Wales. And not just because true believers prefer SNP rhetoric and not-so-secretly want out of the EU, but because the stars appear, to them, to be aligning. So now is the time to hang on to the reins of the party. This explains the leadership’s indolence towards both Brexit and the flourishing of abuse: from crisis, confusion and fear, new cadres are born.

Real revolutions, however, involve huge shifts in power for people to control their own destinies. From the founding of the NHS to the forward march of women’s liberation, these transformations changed forever the fortunes of so many. Each required a Labour government to bring them about; to sit and await their arrival would have been an abrogation of what it means to be Labour.

For the Labour voters who need an alternative and the young people who want one, let us call time on the nasty new-old politics now revealing itself, a strain of politics deceiving and failing so many.