I’VE done it: pushed my boat out to uncharted seas and voted for Jeremy Corbyn to be leader of the Labour Party.

I thought I should do it before the notorious “they” took away my chance to vote because I wasn’t a “genuine” Labour supporter. I support Corbyn because of the policies he wants to push through — policies that used to represent the Labour Party. It was what was “genuine” about Labour. But no more.

The media are totally obsessed by “left-wing” candidate Corbyn. Without him the leadership contest would have been one big yawn, of no interest to anyone but the inner circle. With him as a candidate, people are suddenly thinking and talking about politics — real politics and real conversations.

Like many of my generation I’ve done my best to vote in general elections, having seen a fair number of them. I have never belonged to any political party and when voting, my choice was made on the current situation, the constituency I was living in and the individual candidate rather than the party they stood for.

And like many others I always considered myself as somewhere in the middle. There were some conservative policies I could agree with, just as there were some labour policies that were worth supporting — and please note the absence of capital letters there. But over the years, while I stayed in that same political space, everything moved way to the right of me. I am not alone in this, though it’s taken until now for many political commentators to recognise what’s happened.

This is another good reason why many of us want Corbyn to lead the Labour Party.

We are so tired of hearing him and his policies being described as “far-left” or “hard-left.” If the policies he is putting forward are supported by the majority of people (which they are), then surely that would make Britain far-left — and it isn’t. Like many countries we have our prejudices and what can appear to be very right-wing views.

But the majority of people also want many things that will add to the public good. We want none of our treasured National Health Service to be in private (aka corporate) hands. We want an end to the “austerity” measures hurting so many countries across the world, put in place by the World Bank, the IMF and the greedy corporations wanting to hoover up our national assets.

In a wealthy — and let’s face it, self-satisfied — country like Britain it hurts to find so much poverty and homelessness, so much callous treatment by authorities that are paid to look after us. In the last few months I have met a carer of the housebound elderly and disabled paid so little that he is living in someone’s garage; a disabled woman on the verge of committing suicide because of the cuts to her benefit payments; and a policeman whose wages couldn’t, through no fault of his own, cover his rent and other expenses, and who, on the advice of his sergeant, had to make use of a foodbank.

We the majority want to see an end to Britain’s possession of nuclear weapons. We want peace, not war. We want dialogue, not insults. We want our transport system to be back in public ownership. We want the same for our energy supplies. Why should we pay for electricity or gas when the profits go to a corporate foreign company, even though the taxpayer subsidises the infrastructure? Why should our housing market be dominated by rich investors when people can’t afford the rent, let alone the purchase price, of basic accommodation for themselves and their families?

Regardless of personal politics, the majority want these things. We the majority are the real centre, because the majority always forms the centre ground.

At the moment the Parliamentary Labour Party, as opposed to party members, local councillors and unions, is fighting tooth and nail not to recognise any of the above — except for leadership candidate Andy Burnham, who keeps playing catch-up with Corbyn’s announced policies. It does not bode well that supposedly serious leadership contenders are reduced to crying: “Well, I want to do that too!”

The party does not want to admit that, in its efforts to be in the “centre” (which actually means “Tory-lite” or, as Scotland describes it, “red Tory”) it has seriously misread public opinion. It has failed to listen to its members; it failed to listen to all those people who left Labour after a lifetime of being committed to the party because of Blair’s lies about Iraq and his government putting corporate interests before the interests of the people.

In constantly reminding people that Blair “won three elections,” it refuses to see that with each election fewer people turned out to vote and the last election was won on the votes of around 22 per cent of the electorate.

The Blair years, despite Blair’s government enacting some very good policies, were inherently dishonest. All the major party figures were guilty of lying about one thing or another. It was not just a case of the “dodgy dossiers” used to force a case for invading Iraq.

As one example, David Miliband — scheduled to make a “comeback” speech just after the leadership election — made several incorrect statements to Parliament as foreign secretary. He said that Britain condemned the use of torture, had not been complicit in it and would not condone, authorise or co-operate with it in future.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office fought to stop evidence of Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed’s torture being made public. And the evidence in the inquiry into the killing of Iraqi hotel receptionist Baha Mousa — tortured to death by British troops — made it clear that Britain was not only complicit — it was instructing its soldiers in such techniques.

Blairite MPs weren’t the only ones to mislead Parliament. There have been several occasions in the last five years of Tory MPs doing the same thing. And the majority of the public find this offensive, particularly when British actions resulting in the death and displacement of countless people are covered up. Under an inherently honest leadership, as Corbyn’s would be, such actions would not take place and there would be far more transparency — something many voters would welcome.

Thousands of people wanting to vote in this election, including some long-standing but vociferous party members, have been told they can’t vote as “we have reason to believe that you do not support the aims and values of the Labour Party.”

The fact that it appears to be only those who would vote for Corbyn being taken out demonstrates the absence of any respect for democracy by those at the top of the party.

And “values?” To quote Yvette Cooper’s campaign literature: “Let’s stand up for our timeless Labour values, take on the Tories, and change the world.” What aims and values would those be then?

Because to the public it seems that it’s the MPs heading Labour that no longer support Labour values. How else can you interpret their abstention on the Tory Welfare Reform Bill in July? Too cowardly to vote with the Tories and too gutless to vote with their conscience (as Corbyn and his colleagues did) and join the Scottish National Party MPs in voting it down, they allowed the Bill, with all its inbuilt cruelty towards the powerless poor, to pass into law because they wouldn’t vote at all.

That single act has shown the country that the Labour Party has lost its way, lost sight of its founding principles, lost its soul. Apart from Corbyn, all the leadership contenders abstained — and they want to lead the party? To what end?

Given the chance, and backed by the people, Corbyn and his team might help the party, and the country, retrieve those principles. And maybe that could get rid of a lot of rubbish politics along the way.

Labour used to stand for something: it was a party for people and social justice, opposing the Tory property and money-focused party. And here is something that the Labour grandees, the Blairites and the politicians who want power rather than good governance have utterly failed to understand. For all their hostility towards Corbyn and their desperate digging up of the past in the hope they will find something to trash his reputation as an honest, decent and committed man, in the end it would not matter if he personally wasn’t the leader of the party. All the people and party need is someone to head the move to a caring and peaceful society.

Corbyn’s presence in this election has shown one thing — that there are millions of British citizens looking for a better society, a fairer world. That is something they ceased to hope for when none of the main parties offers it. Right or left, all we are presented with is some form of austerity. What everyone backing Corbyn is voting for is a hope, and it is surely Corbyn’s hope too, that whatever happens after the election, whatever turmoil, quarrels and infighting the MPs see fit to indulge in, the party itself will emerge reformed, led by its membership and supporters, and espousing the “timeless” values and social vision that is needed for our country’s future.