GAME of Thrones, Macbeth, Julius Caesar – no literary comparison really does justice to the back-stabbing shambles that is the UK Labour Party.

First there was the orchestrated exit from the shadow cabinet by a succession of self-important MPs – unrecognisable to most Scots. Without any tangible beef save that Jeremy wasn’t a “proper leader”, their walkout rapidly came to resemble a gigantic, hissy fit and in any case, didn’t succeed. Corbyn just held on and within weeks Tony Blair’s skewering in the Chilcot Report raised pretty big questions about the merits of the “strong” (for which read totalitarian) leadership style apparently yearned for by Corbyn’s critics.

Now – just as his automatic inclusion on the leadership ballot means the Labour leader will almost certainly see off Angela Eagle’s faltering challenge – another hopeful has jumped into the race. Supporters of the MP for Pontypridd, Owen Smith, say he’s a better choice than Eagle because he was not an MP during the Iraq war, voted against bombing Syria, was absent for the vote against the Welfare Bill and has opposed most cuts. Forty-six-year-old Smith clearly hopes his relative youth and soft left credentials will make him the “unity” candidate and persuade Eagle – Corbyn’s former Shadow Business Secretary – to quit before the vote a la Andrea Leadsom. But Angela ain’t Andrea – she’s been Labour MP for Wallasey for 24 years whilst Andrea was in the House for a mere six years before her spectacular rise and fall. And Owen ain’t Theresa. The new Prime Minister has been the longest-serving Home Secretary of recent times while Owen Smith has been an MP for just seven fairly uneventful years.

So if Angela ain’t going to be edged out of the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn without a fight, that makes the timing of Smith’s bid more than a tad peculiar. The former shadow work and pensions secretary threw his hat in the ring days after Eagle’s embarrassingly ill-attended press launch and weeks after the coordinated run of shadow cabinet resignations which should have seen the back of Labour’s stubborn and irritatingly popular leader. During that time, you’d think, Angela and Owen would have had a wee chat and come to an agreement. After all they claim to be comrades with one over-riding goal – to rid the Labour Party of the dangerously de-stabilising usurper Corbyn. But no.

Even though it will split the vote and even though neither candidate stands much chance of trumping Corbyn’s loyal grassroots and union support, both have decided to stand.

Of course, that’s democracy. But their botched coup has served only to devalue their own stock and has further damaged the Labour Party’s battered reputation. And the rebels look set to lose again, leaving themselves with just one nuclear option – quitting the party to set up another one.

Is that what they really intend?

Do Corbyn’s detractors really have the courage to set up a new version of the SDP like those disgruntled with the Labour Party’s “extremism” in the mid 80s? I doubt it. Angela Eagle et al are out of step with the current Labour Party membership, and face deselection – her Wallasey constituency party has already opposed the leadership challenge. But still, the band of former Shadow Cabinet members insist Jeremy Corbyn is the problem and – by extension – the party membership. Such chronic denial is unlikely to produce the brave, principled leadership necessary to create a new party with any hope of survival in these turbulent times.

In fact, whether Owen Smith is further to the left than Angela Eagle is completely beside the point. The vast bulk of Labour Party members are perfectly happy with the leader they’ve got. It’s only the mainstream media who share the parliamentary Labour Party’s distaste for Jeremy Corbyn and unfortunately for both, the nature of their grievances are far from obvious. OK he looks a bit bedraggled compared to Labour’s recent bullet-proof-suited leaders, fails to hit the high notes as an orator and has missed a few sitters against David Cameron. But voters know what he stands for and believe his heart is in the right place. And after two decades of leaders who talked a good game but failed to tackle the grinding inequality of British society, that means a lot. As Gary Yonge puts it: “Corbyn’s mandate has somehow come to be seen as an affront to common decency, and his opponents’ inability to beat him as his fault. ‘Would it not be easier,’” Bertholt Brecht once wrote. ‘To dissolve the people and elect another?’”

IT seems like an extraordinary point of view put like that – and yet “dissolving the people” is precisely what Labour’s ruling NEC have tried to do.

While all eyes were focused on the biggest issue confronting this week’s meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) – whether Jeremy Corbyn should have an automatic place on the ballot paper for a new leader – a very important set of changes voted through after he left have been almost entirely overlooked.

The NEC decided that anyone voting in the leadership race must either have been in the party for six months, or must pay a £25 fee within the next two days to sign up as a supporter – when Corbyn was elected in 2015 the supporters fee was just £3. This freeze on voting rights could mean 115,000 members who joined since the attempted post-Brexit coup against Corbyn, have just been disenfranchised. Who knows if that will make a big change to the likely result. The £25 joining fee could discourage supporters – or it could enrage them and give further momentum to Corbyn’s fight against his former Shadow Cabinet colleagues.

It certainly poses a question mark about which side is fighting dirty.

After the NEC meeting, NEC member and trade union official Johanna Baxter said Jeremy Corbyn’s attempt to force an open vote meant he “tacitly endorsed bullying and intimidation.” Did he? The Corbyn camp say having a secret ballot on such a big issue would be “virtually unprecedented”. Is that just posturing?

To onlookers, the Corbynistas occasionally sound a bit gangster-like while their opponents sound feeble and extremely righteous – Johanna Baxter tweeted repeatedly about “fighting for our party’s future”. The trouble is the other side thinks it is doing the same. Such meaningless but grandiose talk suggests Corbyn’s opponents are on a Very Important Mission and should not have their bona fides called into question. Sadly for them, it rings very hollow. Angela Eagle has repeatedly said she is standing to make sure Labour parts of Britain facing cuts and austerity don’t have an even worse time post Brexit. Does she realise how alienating that sounds to those of us who don’t live in Labour voting areas – like the whole of Scotland?

So is this the end of the Labour party?

Maybe not.

The huffy MPs who walked out aren’t a very tasty prospect – and sooner or later, they’ll realise that. Their version of leadership depends a lot on the ability to perform parliamentary set-pieces – and there’s no question Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t do them very well. But just as a football match isn’t determined by the number of corners stylishly converted, so well executed despatch box speeches don’t win elections. MPs are completely focused on the tiny, opaque confines of Westminster but party members and the general public view leadership more widely. They know where Corbyn stands on policies. They know he is up for renationalising railways, ending austerity and scrapping Trident.

What they don’t know is whether Labour MPs will get off their high horses and back this very popular set of policies. By the time a bloody leadership battle finally establishes which side has prevailed, it may be too late. After decades of ignoring its own policy drift, the pigeons are finally coming home to roost for Labour. The coop may not be strong enough to stand the weight.