SIX months ago, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn warned the UK could become a “zombie democracy” because of Tory efforts to transform it into a one-party state.

What a difference six months makes.

Today Mr Corbyn is a zombie leader – not exactly dead, but surely undead to the majority of his MPs who long for nothing more than to get rid of him.

And rather like those shuffling horror movie tropes, Mr Corbyn evokes equal amounts of anguish and antipathy depending on whether you are a Corbynite or a critic.

Angela Eagle says her leadership challenge will re-unite, rather than split, the party but right now it’s hard to see a happy ending where the Labour Party comes together for the common good. Both sides are too entrenched for anything other than a bitter fight to the finish.

If Mr Corbyn doesn’t get the backing of enough MPs to even make the ballot paper – something which looks entirely likely given his dwindling band of parliamentary adherents – he will mount a legal challenge.

We admire Mr Corbyn’s tenacity, and don’t doubt his sincerity in wanting to take Labour in a new direction, but surely he can see that a leader cannot lead if he doesn’t have the confidence of parliamentary colleagues? If not, then the Corbyn era starts to look less like a new beginning and more like a takeover.

Every day this goes on the chances of fed-up MPs leaving to form a new centre-left party increases. Talks have already taken place with disaffected Tories about setting up a kind of SDP for the 21st Century.

If that happens will Labour become a perennial party of protest happy to demand a brighter future, but doomed never to win a General Election? For the sake of the country, and the North-East in particular, we hope not, but 2016 has been the summer when the political rulebook was ripped up. Only time will tell.