Jeremy Corbyn avoided any hint that he might have won the Labour leadership contest when he addressed a packed rally in north London, the 99th and final event of his three-month campaign.
The speakers preceding him – MPs who had nominated him for the leadership contest, a union leader, his campaign team, party members from his Islington North constituency – prefaced their speeches on Thursday night with references such as “win or lose, it has been a triumph” or “not to count any chickens yet”. But there was a palpable sense in the hall, an expectation, that he has in fact won and that this was what will be announced at a special party conference around lunchtime on Saturday.
Corbyn ensured there was no “Sheffield rally moment”, no premature and over-excited celebrations as Neil Kinnock disastrously did during the 1992 general election. Becoming too animated is not Corbyn’s style, and he opted as usual for a calm delivery.
He indulged in only one gentle tease. “This is the 99th event we have done as part of this campaign. Saturday in the conference centre in Parliament Square will be the century, will be the 100th event, we will know the results.
“I am looking forward to that with,” he said, adding a dramatic pause, “interest, if not some anticipation.”
He has crisscrossed the UK, from rallies and events across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, attracting in total about 50,000 people, one of the biggest political grassroots mobilisations in Labour’s history.
His 99th campaign event was different from the others. With balloting having closed earlier in the day, there was no plea for votes and instead he used it to thank those MPs and union leaders who backed him, his campaign team, volunteers and supporters.
He received a standing ovation at the beginning of his 33-minute speech and again at the end, with the loudest applause coming for a pledge not to renew the Trident nuclear programme, to resist bombing campaigns abroad and to reach out the hand of humanity to migrants. He also set out his plans for a national investment bank to fund infrastructure projects, new housing and a mass of other programmes.
He ran through moments from the radical history of his Islington North constituency and recalled the moments too from Labour’s history, from the founder Keir Hardie to the ambition of the post-war Attlee government.
He expressed satisfaction with the way tens of thousands of people had been mobilised by the campaign and promised to build on that movement whatever the outcome on Saturday.
“So this inspiration that’s been the last 100 days does not end on Saturday. Saturday is simply one staging post in it. We have changed politics in Britain. We challenge the narrative that only the individual matters, the collective is irrelevant. And instead we say the common good is the aspiration of all of us.”
In the audience was Martha Todd, 40, from Wood Green, in London, making her first attendance at a Corbyn rally. “I have been disillusioned with politics all my life. He is the first politician I have connected with,” she said.
Todd voted for Corbyn and predicted he was going to win. Echoing him, she said: “Whether he does or not, the fact that he has created such a huge movement has woken people up.”
Corbyn has often found himself taking the late-night bus home during the campaign, having arrived back in London by train from far-flung parts of the UK. But that was not necessary on Thursday: he was on home turf.
