When I was a teen, in the 1980s north of England, I kicked about with a crowd of socialist, vegetarian, anti-nuclear folk. They were very supportive of the Labour movement, and the unions as the miners' strike was at its apex.
The biggest thrill for some of them, though, was being part of Labour's Militant Tendency and Socialist Action whose main aim was undermining the Labour party. I realised then that Labour had a double burden of lefter-wing activists and unions who would seemingly rather have a Tory government than a moderate Labour one.
One flashy group of Labour militants who saw themselves as the local heroes bringing down Thatcher, included Livingstone, Hatton and - very much bringing up the rear - Corbyn. Corbyn was considered a solid follower but not bright, another middle-class grammar-school boy who had chosen left-wing politics as part of his identity.
Of course they loathed Britain and England. In their minds, British colonial overlords still sought to rule the world, aided by international bankers. British police only existed to beat up Black and gay citizens. The working-class were addled by television and consumer goods. For the anti-Labour Labour activists, destroying the idea of stuffy old 'Britain' was important to shore up their politics but also their sense of themselves.
It taught me a lot about social class because so few of these activists were of the 'respectable working class' I came from. They were of a university-educated middle-class whose tear-it-down political activism had no real impact on their own lucrative futures, or on their families. They came from the tree-lined Victorian avenues on the west side of town, temporarily decorated with peace posters and serving Nicaraguan coffee.
Some of them were lovely, and still are - having reverted to their more conventional middle-class / Methodist / reformist roots. Some of them were the sneering, ideologically bull-headed people who have merrily undermined the Labour party, the working-class, the nation-state and women's rights ever since.
Corbyn is, I guess, last man standing from that era. I hope he enjoys his new democratically-named party and has dug his 'IRA-PLO forever' T- shirt out of the cupboard.