IN THE weekend just gone, Brighton began to bustle with activity ahead of this week’s Labour Party annual conference.

This is one of the largest and most high-profile political events, with over 11,000 people attending, mainly as lobbyers, and over 500 fringe events. But not for two decades has the event been a meaningful exercise in democracy.

“Partnership in power” was established in 1997, supposedly as a way of balancing dialogue between the parliamentary party, affiliates and members.

It was said to be a consensual way to prevent understandable tensions from becoming dramas, often seen in card votes at conference, then televised live.

The long-term effect was to centralise power into the Westminster bubble, with the whole thing being stage managed for the benefit of media comment.

Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to transform Labour into a “big, open democratic” party where policies are openly debated rather than dictated by the leadership.

As leader of the opposition, he has already made an official appearance in Brighton — at the Labour National Women’s Conference.

At this not so well-reported event, he electrified the audience with his analysis of how women are bearing the brunt of the government’s austerity measures, a concept not always easily accepted even on the left.

With the mass way his election was achieved, Britain has changed — the old ways of doing things are receding.

This means that Labour is probably already prepared to not “cut our way to prosperity.” This “new” Labour will tackle grotesque inequality and protect public services.

Corbyn has pledged that no person will be destitute, that a real start to eroding the gender pay gap will be made and that all refugees will be welcomed.

This is infinitely better than the way New Labour was, as Peter Mandelson put it in 1998, “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.”

While Corbyn has posed with an enormous marrow, larger than David Miliband’s banana, it is said by the mainstream media, and “Call me Dave” copes with the fallout of Piggate, Labour will get on with dealing with policy on Trident, Syria and the EU.

The debate is against the backcloth that Labour’s extended membership keeps on climbing.

Corbyn makes clear that “anyone is welcome to join the Labour Party, providing they support the principles of the party and be content with that.”

The big test of this new wave of mass openness is whether the new registered supporters, affiliated members and full members are mobilised into not only policy development but also leading many millions of citizens into mass action for peace and against austerity, against the dikats of bosses at work and racism, sexism, homophobia and other infringements of human rights, uniting the thin red line inside Parliament with an engulfing wave of red flood outside.

Whoever was Labour’s leader faced a daunting challenge in 2020. Not only does the party have to deal with the loss of its Scottish base, its support has been much eroded by Ukip, Green and other nationalist support.

This year’s general election was decided on a low turnout, especially so among younger voters and lower-income voters.

That must change and a mass campaign on voter registration led by Labour’s new members could change the entire dynamic.