The following 36 Labour MPs rebelled against the 42 Days Vote:

Diane Abbott; Richard Burden; Katy Clark; Harry Cohen; Frank Cook; Jeremy Corbyn; Jim Cousins; Andrew Dismore; Frank Dobson; David Drew; Paul Farrelly; Mark Fisher; Paul Flynn; Neil Gerrard; Ian Gibson; Roger Godsiff; John Grogan; Dai Havard; Kate Hoey; Kelvin Hopkins; Glenda Jackson; Lynne Jones; Peter Kilfoyle; Andrew MacKinlay; Bob Marshall-Andrews; John McDonnell; Michael Meacher; Julie Morgan; Chris Mullin; Douglas Naysmith; Gordon Prentice; Linda Riordan; Alan Simpson; Emily Thornberry; David Winnick; Mike Wood.

Note the abscence of one particular figure from this list: Jon Cruddas, erstwhile rising star of the Party left.

That left-wing of the Labour Party needs to wake up and realise how impotent it’s become. Nobody listens to them anymore. Their last tangible achievements were in the 90s with the minimum wage and devolution; since then, nothing. Not on Iraq, not on civil liberties, not on privatisation. They claim they stay in the party because it’s the only way they’ll have influence - but they have no influence in the party.

The government went over their heads today by cutting a deal with the DUP. Those with power in the party would now prefer to deal with a party consisting of conservative nationalists and religious extremists than with secular, socially liberal democratic socialists. And now even their usual allies in the Compass group MPs and Jon Cruddas abandoned them for fear of the whips today.

Shouldn’t that tell the Labour-left something? It has no influence; New Labour stopped listening when it realised how responsive MPs were to threats from the Whips. If it ever wants that power back, there would need to be a grassroots revolution in the party. Activists and constituency parties would need to seize power back from the creaking and undemocratic hierarchy and deselect MPs who voted for measures like this. They’d have to deselect them, find suitable candidates and win the constituency for that new face. And this in the face of great pressure from the national machine that hands out funding and support. Can you imagine how fast that funding would dry up if local activists deselected one of Gordon’s favourite faces and replaced them with a snarling (yet wonderfully bearded) socialist calling for his immediate impeachment for economic heresy? The cash would just go (if, of course, it’s not already gone to pay off the party’s debts…). So - the revolution could happen, but it’d be slow.

The other alternative would be to jump party and head somewhere else. The current fringe socialist parties - the SWP/Left List, RESPECT Renewal, the Socialist Party, blah - are sectarian basket cases who’d destroy those MPs’ careers. The Lib Dems wouldn’t have proper socialists. That leaves joining the Greens - who’d welcome the support and funding and seats. But whether they could persuade their local support bases to come with them is another question.

But the other choice is founding another party. This would be difficult. Every attempt to found a new socialist party since the inception of the Labour party itself has died of Trotskyite infilitration and sectarian squabbles. The SWP might well enter as a bloc and break the new party in the way they did Socialist Alliance. And funding and ground support might prove an issue if local Labour parties didn’t move with the MPs. Not to mention First Past the Post…

That’s why any attempt to set up a new party would need great care. The MPs would have to go to their local parties and make the case for change. Some of the unions would have to go with them - and that’s possible, given the recent discontent from the GMB and other left-leaning groups. And they’d have to go as a concerted group; if they immediately formed a unified parliamentary body when they defected, they’d have a parliamentary record to stand on next election, and would be less vulnerable to sectarian collapse. It’d be difficult, but it could work. Just so long as they keep the SWP out, of course.

The Labour Left has several options. It can find another party, or it can establish its own. Either way, they’d have more of a voice than their current whisper. The government seems more frightened of other parties eating up its votes all round. Just as triangulation against the Tories constantly drove New Labour to the right, perhaps a threat from the left will pull them back again. And they’d have more luck in the Commons judging by recent events; Brown was more willing to deal with another, small party than his own MPs.

The Labour Left has no influence now, and needs to move on. If anyone doubts that, I’ll remind them of the results in the 42 Days debate. For: 315. Against: 306. The difference between those numbers: 9. Number of DUP MPs for: 9.

Number of Labour MPs against: 36.

Get out before it’s too late, rebels.