“Wow,” says John McDonnell, breaking the silence. Everyone in the room expected Jeremy Corbyn to win, but not by this much. The “unelectable” left-winger has just taken 59.5 per cent of the vote in a four-horse race.

The candidates and their campaign chiefs have been cooped up on the third floor of Westminster’s vast Queen Elizabeth II conference centre for 40 minutes anxiously awaiting advance notice of the result. Deprived of their phones and iPads to prevent the news leaking out, they have been forced to make small talk. After a summer in which the contenders have whiled away countless hours backstage at hustings up and down the country, there is not much more to say. When the gruelling programme of events began, Corbyn was a 200/1 rank outsider. Today, 12 September 2015, he is about to become leader of the Labour Party.

After Iain McNicol, Labour’s general secretary, reads out the fateful figures, Corbyn’s defeated rivals—Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall—offer their congratulations. Corbyn and McDonnell reciprocate, thanking the others for a comradely contest. There are hugs, but it is all rather restrained. Yet inside, the victors are fit to burst. They are “gob-smacked” at the scale of the win.

When the result is publicly declared downstairs in the conference hall an hour or so later, the discordance of the audience reaction hints at the troubles ahead. There is wild cheering from some sections of the room. People literally jump out of their seats, shouting and punching the air. Hardened trade unionists are standing up chanting “Jez we did, Jez we did!” There is ecstasy and disbelief in the block reserved for Corbyn’s campaign team. A few minutes earlier rumours had zipped along the rows that Corbyn had won 60 per cent, an idea his supporters dismissed, saying there was no way that could be right. Until the last moment, some feared the contest could yet be fixed or summarily cancelled. “You can’t imagine that they will allow this to happen,” said one.

But it has happened. And Corbyn’s detractors cannot believe it either. Between the islands of joy there is a sea of dejection. MPs, many of them appropriately grouped on the right hand side of the hall, sit in stony silence, betraying their emotions with the occasional grimace. Party staff wear sullen, sad faces to match the black attire they are sporting, symbolising the death of the party they have known. An incredulous Labour-supporting journalist sits shaking his head repeatedly as he surveys the scene.

Dressed in an uncharacteristically smart dark blue jacket gifted to him by his sons for the occasion—worn without a tie, in keeping with the European anti-austerity look—Corbyn delivers a victory address that heralds a changed party from that represented in the room. He makes a point of welcoming the new recruits who have surged into Labour’s ranks over the summer, inspired by the chance to transform national politics. His speech meanders its way to a rousing conclusion: “We don’t have to be unequal, it doesn’t have to be unfair, poverty isn’t inevitable. Things can, and they will, change.”

The press pack descends on Corbyn as soon as he steps off the stage. The party staff, whose job it is to look after the new leader, seem paralysed. “Go on, get a grip guys!” Corbyn’s campaign press officer tells them, before manhandling his boss through the jostling paps himself, past the TV reporters jabbing microphones in his face.

When Corbyn eventually gets out of the building he heads to a victory party for his team in a nearby pub. In a brief moment of respite in the cab on the way, he and his old friend McDonnell share a knowing look that says: “How the hell did we end up here?”

At the Sanctuary pub it is pandemonium. 16,000 people volunteered their labour to the Corbyn campaign; it feels like they are all squeezed into the building. The bar manager is panicking about health and safety, saying he will have his licence revoked. When Corbyn arrives there is screaming and cheering and hugging. TV crews try to push their way in through the door. Others resort to filming through the window.

A small amplifier and microphone are set up at one end of the room. Corbyn stands on a chair to make a speech. “We’ve been through 100 days of the most amazing experience many of us have had in our lives,” he says. Someone has given him a tea towel printed with an image of his mentor, the late Tony Benn. Corbyn reads aloud the quote below: “Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself.” Several people burst into tears.

Nobody has noticed the American family sat at the back. They only came in for a quiet lunch, and find themselves in the middle of a raucous party. “Apologies to this American family that we’ve interrupted,” Corbyn says. “We respect our good friends in America.” The room breaks out into a spontaneous chant of “USA, USA, USA!” It is the most unlikely chorus coming from a crowd of socialists celebrating the election of an anti-imperialist. “No one expected to hear that!” Corbyn laughs.

It is a day of incongruities. As Corbyn and his supporters rejoice, a huge demonstration is snaking its way through central London, called in response to horrific scenes of people drowning in the Mediterranean out of desperation to reach a place of safety. Corbyn’s attendance would usually be a certainty. But members of his campaign staff have been anxious that he should not go—it is not expected of a party leader, and anyway there is too much work to be done assembling a shadow cabinet. Corbyn, though, will not be bossed. Without warning his team, in his victory speech at the QEII centre earlier he had announced: “One of my first acts as leader of the party will be to go to the demonstration this afternoon to show support for the way refugees must be treated.”

It was quite a statement. Three and a half hours later, Corbyn is stood in front of tens of thousands in Parliament Square proclaiming: “Refugees Welcome.” Watching on, McDonnell feels proud of his friend’s “courage and grit and bravery.” Behind the stage, as the new leader’s third speech of the day draws to a close, a phalanx of young volunteers in bright red ‘TEAM CORBYN’ T-shirts forms a protective cordon ready to speed him through the throng of ecstatic supporters and selfie-seekers, and on to a future in which courage, grit and bravery will be in high demand.

• “The narration in The Candidate has the quality of being told from a front-row seat in this drama… Nunns’ skilled narration reads like a novel” – THE CANDIDATE reviewed in Social Movement Studies (6/4/2018)
• ALEX NUNNS discusses the state of the British Labour Party at Politics Theory Other (5/16/2018)
• The 2017 General Election – How could they all be so wrong?- an excerpt from THE CANDIDATE at Ceasefire (5/2/2018)
• Oh Jeremy Corbyn! The Origins of a Political Chant – an extract from THE CANDIDATE in The Quietus (4/9/2018)
• Alex Nunns, author of THE CANDIDATE discusses the improbable rise of the Corbyn movement at the A Up Let’s Talk podcast (3/19/2018)
• “The excitement; the dynamism; the heady, disorienting feeling of the impossible becoming possible.”: Read an extract from THE CANDIDATE at New Socialist (3/19/2018)
• “ It will either annoy or delight you… but it certainly will not bore.”: Progress review THE CANDIDATE (3/14/2018)
• ALEX NUNNS author of THE CANDIDATE discusses the lows and highs of the Corbyn movement at Reel Politik (3/6/2018)
• ALEX NUNNS author of THE CANDIDATE on the media’s treatment of Jeremy Corbyn at Media Democracy (3/6/2018)
• ALEX NUNNS, author of THE CANDIDATE, debates anti-Corbyn smears on BBC Daily Politics (2/22/2018)
• “Make the socialist arguments.” ALEX NUNNS is interviewed in The Clarion (2/6/2018)
• THE CANDIDATE is cited by The Canary regarding media coverage of Jeremy Corbyn (11/29/2017)
• “The Labour conference that the media failed to report.” ALEX NUNNS at Red Pepper (10/3/2017)
• THE CANDIDATE is cited in the Dublin Review of Books (9/11/2017)
• Colin Robinson discusses THE CANDIDATE on Law and Disorder (7/6/2017)
• Theresa May has given Jeremy Corbyn a boost no-one saw coming, says ALEX NUNNS at The Canary (7/3/2017)
• The Bookseller covers the winners of this year’s awards from the Alliance of Radical Booksellers, including ALEX NUNNS (6/27/2017)
• THE CANDIDATE wins the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing (6/26/2017)
• “We have to seize this moment.” ALEX NUNNS is interviewed at Morning Star (6/26/2017)
• “A Labour Party that actually challenges entrenched power and governs for the broad mass of the people will face significant resistance.” ALEX NUNNS on Labour leadership at Jacobin (6/22/2017)
• “Conservatives are now terrified of having another election because they believe that Corbyn would win it.” ALEX NUNNS is interviewed at Counterfire (6/21/2017)
• “Two years ago today Jeremy Corbyn made it onto the Labour leadership ballot — with seconds to spare.” An excerpt from THE CANDIDATE at Jacobin (6/15/2017)
• “An enlightening and invigorating read.” THE CANDIDATE: JEREMY CORBYN’S IMPROBABLE PATH TO POWER reviewed at Ten Million Hardbacks (6/13/2017)
• ALEX NUNNS interviewed on the BBC World Service on the shock UK general election results (6/13/2017)
• ALEX NUNNS appears in The Canary after catching an incident of media bias against Jeremy Corbyn (6/5/2017)
• Alex Nunns’ THE CANDIDATE shortlisted for the 2017 Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing (5/4/2017)
• “In the following weeks, as public excitement began to build behind Corbyn… the Guardian’s response, save for the occasional mention, was a virtual blackout.” ALEX NUNNS in Novara Media on coverage of Jeremy Corbyn in The Guardian (4/25/2017)
• “When Labour talks about issues which affect everybody, like education and health, that’s historically where it’s strong… But a constitutional issue like Brexit drives wedges into the party’s fissures.” ALEX NUNNS in Vice (4/13/2017)
• “An entertaining account of how the far left seized control of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition.” THE CANDIDATE in The Scottish Review of Books (4/4/2017)
• “Corbyn withstood parliamentary blackmail.” ALEX NUNNS in TNS (2/13/2017)
• “Corbyn’s candidacy was initially given 200-1 odds.” CORBYN in PEACE NEWS (1/30/2017)
• “Telling the story of how Corbyn won is important.”: THE CANDIDATE in Jacobin (12/8/2016)
• “An account in riveting detail of Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to power which reads more like a thriller than a chronicle”: THE CANDIDATE in Philosophy Football (12/5/2016)
• “A political thriller”: THE CANDIDATE in Leamington Letters (12/5/2016)
• “A clear-sighted and enjoyable exploration”: THE CANDIDATE in Morning Star (12/5/2016)
• “Dedicated Corbynites might enjoy finding Alex Nunns’s fervently sympathetic The Candidate in their Christmas stockings.”: THE CANDIDATE in The Guardian Best Politics Books of 2016 (12/1/2016)
• “A fascinating account”: THE CANDIDATE praised by John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (10/21/2016)
• “Grippingly told” THE CANDIDATE reviewed by Labour Briefing (10/17/2016)
• “The Candidate: Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path to Power”: ALEX NUNNS talks to Sean Moncrieff on Newstalk Radio (10/13/2016)
• “How on earth did Jeremy Corbyn become leader of the Labour Party?”: ALEX NUNNS in conversation with George Galloway on Talk Radio (10/13/2016)
• “The Candidate: Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path to Power”:ALEX NUNNS is interviewed on Doug Henwood’s Behind the News (10/13/2016)
• “What Alex Nunns has achieved with The Candidate is remarkable” Red Labour on THE CANDIDATE (10/11/2016)
• “Well-written, clear and analytically sharp.” – James Meadway, economic advisor to John McDonnell, on THE CANDIDATE (10/6/2016)
• “It’s all over bar the shouting – although shouting there will be”: ALEX NUNNS talks to RT about the unlikely rise of Jeremy Corbyn (10/6/2016)
• How well did our finest political pundits deal with the rise of Corbyn? (10/3/2016)