Voting in the Labour party leadership election closed this Wednesday and the results should be announced by the end of the week. So far, all opinion polls have given Jeremy Corbyn a clear lead over his only rival, right-winger Owen Smith. So, the odds are that Corbyn will retain his position as Labour leader - that is, unless the unbelievably bureaucratic manoeuvres of the party machinery finally succeed in stifling the membership.

If Corbyn does get re-elected, it will be despite a vicious line-up of hostile forces. Just as in last year's leadership election, the media and the entire political establishment, including most of his own party's MPs and many of its full-time officials, have joined ranks in a systematic campaign of slander and smear against him.

This time round, however, this public defamation campaign has reached an entirely new level. In fact, it is hard to think of any other British politician who has ever been targeted in such a way and with such unanimity.

They want a career, we need change!

But then, of course, beyond the person of Corbyn himself, it is quite something else that this campaign is really targeting: in particular, it is the very idea that politicians should express the aspirations of the working class voters who elect them, or that they should be in any way accountable to these voters - two things which obviously go together.

Had these voters been given a chance to have a say over Blair's war in Iraq or Osborne's benefit cuts, they would most certainly have voted against. But the majority of Labour MPs supported the Iraq war and, in many cases, abstained over Osborne's welfare cuts - when they didn't actually support them. By contrast, to his credit, Corbyn stood his ground by opposing both, on behalf of his constituents, against the instructions of the party leadership.

Likewise for accountability. Isn't it ironical that all these anti-Corbyn Labour MPs complain bitterly about being "harassed" - if not "bullied" - because they are taken to task by their constituency party members for their role in the parliamentary "coup" which led to this new leadership election, or for opposing Corbyn in this election? These Labour MPs don't feel any more accountable to the members of their own constituency parties than to the working class voters who elected them!

The truth is, of course, that what they're mostly worried about is their own political careers and the possibility of being deselected for their manoeuvring to try to get rid of a democratically elected leader, thereby causing chaos in the Labour party.

But what does the working class need such politicians for, if all they're concerned with is their own careers?

For a fighting workers' party

Contrary to what Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson claims, with the backing of TV programmes such as Panorama and Dispatches, Corbyn is not and has never been a "revolutionary" of any kind - nor have most of his supporters.

Corbyn's view is that some social changes can be brought about within the political framework put in place by the capitalist class to protect its own interests. But as long as the capitalist fat cats remain in control of the means of production, their parasitism on the economy will make it impossible to get rid of the social injustices which are a plague on society.

The capitalists know this and so do the Labour Blairites who are waging war on Corbyn. They know that Corbyn is no threat to the capitalists' privileges. But the mere fact that he makes a stand against past, present and future austerity measures, is just unforgivable for politicians who, whatever their party, see their role as managing the affairs of the capitalist class in its best interests.

The war waged by the Labour party machinery against Corbyn, just because he dares to speak a language which is not that of the bosses, should not come as a surprise, of course. The Labour party was built, over a century ago, as a political instrument of the union leadership. But it was never a political instrument of the working class, capable of representing its interests in the short term, by leading its fights against the immediate attacks of the capitalists - let alone a party capable of leading the working class in the long-term struggle, to free society of today's rotten profit system.

Whatever Corbyn's merits, the Labour party will remain what it is, with or without him at its head. What we need is to build a workers' party which, unlike the Labour party, even under Corbyn, would not seek to promote its members to lofty positions and facilitate their careers within the capitalists' political institutions, but would aim at overthrowing the system.