LABOUR can become a “million-member movement” if supporters of Jeremy Corbyn organise within Labour Party structures, campaigners said at TUC Congress yesterday.

At a fringe meeting organised by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said the insurgent new leader had “lit a flame inside our movement.”

“You change the world by getting active,” he said. “We now need to consolidate [our support], and turn affiliate and registered supporters into members.”

Following the news that tens of thousands had joined the party since the leadership election, in which just under half a million took part, Mr Turner suggested Labour could reach a million before long.

His call was echoed by CLPD assistant secretary Jon Lansman, who said: “Trade unions have won back a party, [now] committed to defending them at their place of work.

“We can now talk about the labour movement again, and its two wings, the political wing and the industrial wing.”

Mr Lansman has as a prominent backer of Mr Corbyn come under attack for his support for mandatory re-selection of MPs.

But yesterday he told inquisitive reporters that MPs would be more concerned about the Tories’ boundary changes.

He said that the lay structures of the Labour Party would become more important in the party’s management as a result of Mr Corbyn’s victory.

“The national executive committee has been a talking shop… a farce,” he said. “That is going to change. I think we’re going to see the NEC playing its role managing the party.

“Party conference [could be] returning to the role it says it should have in the rulebook… as the sovereign body of the party.”

Communication union CWU executive member Maria Exall warned that new members would be put off getting involved in Labour unless the nature of branch meetings changed.

“If they say anything interesting or politically significant, they’ll get stamped on,” she said.