"This is a fascinating account of why—as well as how—Jeremy became leader of the Labour Party and transformed our politics. For anyone engaged in this movement, understanding precisely how we came to be where we are can only make us more effective as we go forward. That's why Alex Nunns' book is so important." —John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

"A valuable, insightful account … too well-reported not to read." —Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian

"The best researched account I've seen to date." —Clive Lewis MP

"Insightful... As far as the leader's closest allies are concerned, Nunns's book is the most authoritative yet published on his rise." —Stephen Bush, The New Statesman

"If you’ve been inspired by the movement growing around Jeremy Corbyn, or simply want to know a bit more about the Labour leader’s unlikely rise to power, this is the book for you.” —Liam Young, columnist, The Independent

“What Alex Nunns has achieved with The Candidate is remarkable. It's the real, inside story of the campaign to elect Jeremy Corbyn, from the ground up. It's as if someone has followed the participants with a video camera throughout, carefully detailing the important moments. But it's more than that: it bears all the hallmarks of someone who genuinely understands the decisive forces that made up the Corbyn moment. And Nunns communicates all this expertly. The book reads like a political thriller, and even though we all know the ending, it's nevertheless an enormously exciting read.” —Red Labour

“Grippingly told … Alex Nunns has done a real service in explaining [Corbyn’s] path to power.” —Mike Phipps, Labour Briefing

In September 2015 an earthquake shook the foundations of British politics. Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong and uncompromising socialist, was elected to head the Labour Party. Corbyn didn’t just win the leadership contest, he trounced his opponents. The establishment was aghast. The official opposition now had as its leader a man with a plan, according to the conservative Daily Telegraph, “to turn Britain into Zimbabwe.”

How this remarkable twist of events came about is the subject of Alex Nunns’ highly readable and richly researched account. Drawing on first-hand interviews with those involved in the campaign, including its most senior figures, Nunns traces the origins of Corbyn’s victory in the dissatisfaction with Blairism stirred by the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crash, the move to the left of the trade unions, and changes in the electoral rules of the Labour Party that turned out to be surreally at odds with the intentions of those who introduced them. The system of one-member-one-vote, which delivered Corbyn’s success, was opposed by those on the left and was heralded by Tony Blair who described it as “a long overdue reform that… I should have done myself.”

Giving full justice to the dramatic swings and nail-biting tensions of an extraordinary summer in UK politics, Nunns’ telling of a story that has received widespread attention but little understanding is as illuminating as it is entertaining. He teases out a plotline of such improbability that it would be unusable in a work of fiction, providing the first convincing explanation of a remarkable phenomenon with enormous consequences for the left in Britain and beyond.