A month is a long time in post-Brexit politics, but at least there is one constant amid the chaos: the incompetence exhibited by those enacting the self-serving, anti-democratic coup against Jeremy Corbyn.

After all it was only a fortnight ago that at a Corbyn rally in Kentish Town shadow chancellor John McDonnell branded the Labour plotters “fucking useless.” While the undiplomatic language was not really necessary, it is important to emphasise that McDonnell was simply telling the truth.

Those plotting to overthrow Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party will have an abundance of excuses at their disposal for their inevitable defeat, just like they did last year when he won the largest democratic mandate of any leader in British political history.

The truth is, however, that they will only have themselves to blame. Some of the Labour right will blame entryism from the likes of the Socialist Workers Party, whose entire membership does not even surpass 2 per cent of the 183,000 who have signed up for a vote in the Labour leadership election.

In reality, Corbyn’s leadership has enticed a coalition of hundreds of thousands of new members, some who are getting involved in political activism for the first time, but also an earlier generation of activists who abandoned Labour during the Blair years.

Moreover, they will not lose because Labour Party members are captivated by Corbyn. The fundamental reason behind why they will lose is that their actions over the past month have shown members of the Labour Party who the real ideologues are. They have shown themselves up to be unfit to lead the party themselves.

From the very beginning of this unmitigated disaster, it has reeked of incompetence. For weeks after the EU referendum — the supposed cause of this botched coup — there was no evident plan or strategy from the plotters besides trying to bully Corbyn out of his position.

In Diane Abbott’s article for the Guardian, she claimed that the first Parliamentary Labour Party meeting since the coup started was based around “breaking him (Corbyn) as a man.” The hypocrisy of MPs using him as a verbal punching bag when they could not even persuade their own constituencies to vote Remain in the referendum is preposterous and absurd.

This barrage of hatred was the only card that the coup plotters could play that stood a chance of succeeding, but Corbyn standing firm against all of this immediately contradicted the plotters’ main complaint — his supposed weakness. Instead of Corbyn resigning, the nasty, anti-democratic nature of the coup has resulted in a huge boom in membership and registered supporters, most of which are intent of defending Corbyn and fighting for socialist policies in the Labour Party.

After threatening to challenge Corbyn and trying to call his bluff for weeks, we were then introduced to the Labour right’s candidate of choice Angela Eagle. Despite claiming tearfully that it was Hilary Benn’s sacking and the EU referendum defeat that pushed her to resign, the domain name for her leadership campaign was already paid for before the ousting of Benn as shadow foreign secretary.

In fact, some news outlets were speculating that she was going to challenge Corbyn a whole 90 days before the EU referendum even took place.

Her disastrous voting record is an oath to a neoliberal New Labour and this meant that she was never going to make a dent in his support — this was confirmed by her disastrous campaign launch comically absent of journalists and subsequent amateurish media appearances.

There was then a last-ditch attempt by the Labour establishment to keep Corbyn off the ballot through the National Executive Committee, but they voted to automatically include him on ballot.

Despite disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of new members by enforcing a cut-off date for eligibility to vote and pricing out the young and the working class by rising the registered supporter fee to £25, over 183,000 people signed up to vote in 48 hours. It has been speculated that the vast majority of these new supporters joined to support Corbyn. Once again, an attempt to rig the system against Corbyn’s leadership backfired spectacularly. 

After Eagle stumbled and swiftly dropped out of the race, it is now down to forgettable ex-Pfizer lobbyist Owen Smith to bring the fight to Corbyn.

Smith has magically reinvented himself as a pioneer of the Labour left in the last 10 days in an attempt to make the membership swoon. It would be a testament to his public relations experience if it wasn’t viewed by most Labour members as transparent and opportunistic.

His previous support for the private finance initiative (PFI), academies and benefit caps as well as his commitment to a second referendum on Theresa May’s Brexit deal will make no inroads in winning back the working-class heartlands Labour needs for a victory in the next general election.

Furthermore, Labour MP John Mann claimed that he was approached by someone seeking his support for Smith’s leadership bid six months ago — once again proving that the coup has been in preparation for much longer than Smith would like to admit.

The fact that such a derisory and incompetent planning took so long makes it even more embarrassing. It has become clear to party members that the very people who are calling for “effective leadership” could not run a bath themselves.

To defeat Corbyn they needed to prove to members that they are fit to lead. Instead, their self-serving insolence has proven exactly the opposite. Corbyn’s stunning victory last year showed that the Parliamentary Labour Party were lacking in talent, effective policies and a bold vision for the country.

It is clear from this risible shambles of a coup that not much has changed.