.Unassuming 66-year-old hardline leftwinger stuns the party by winning on the first round with anti-austerity pitch
- .New leader named at a special conference where Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall admit defeat
- .Supporters wept and punched the air, chanting 'Jez we did, Jez we did' as Corbyn delivered victory speech
- .A total of 422,000 of the 550,000 Labour members took part in the vote, with Corbyn taking more than 251,000
Jeremy Corbyn this afternoon headed straight to a pub with his supporters after storming to victory in the Labour leadership contest, winning almost 60 per cent of the vote in the first round.
In the most extraordinary result in modern political history, the 66-year-old Marxist throwback who has never run anything in his life will now take charge of the party of Keir Hardie, Clement Atlee and Tony Blair.
There were cheers at the QEII Conference Centre in central London as it was confirmed that the unassuming Islington MP had defied all expectations – including his own – to become leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition.
After thanking the unions, attacking the media, and accusing the Conservatives of 'social cleansing', Mr Corbyn took his supporters to the Sanctuary pub in Westminster for a victory drink where they hailed former socialist firebrand Tony Benn and sang the socialist Red Flag anthem.
Earlier, supporters wept and punched the air, chanting 'Jez we did, Jez we did', after it emerged Mr Corbyn had taken 59.5 per cent of the vote - 251,417 of the 422,664 votes cast - against 19 per cent for Andy Burnham, 17 per cent for Yvette Cooper and just 4.5 per cent for Liz Kendall.
But winning could be the easy part: While he was still addressing the leadership conference, the first resignations from the frontbench emerged as his critics warned he would be a 'f***ing disaster'
Jeremy Corbyn this afternoon headed straight to a pub with his supporters after storming to victory in the Labour leadership contest, winning almost 60 per cent of the vote in the first round
Delivering his victory speech, Jeremy Corbyn thanked the MPs who nominated him - many of whom did not want him to win - and the trade unions who backed his bid to lead Labour
Supporters wept and punched the air, chanting 'Jez we did, Jez we did', as Mr Corbyn took to the stage to deliver a call for unity
In an extraordinary result, Mr Corbyn won more votes than all of his rivals put together in the first round of the contest, removing the need to use the Alternative Vote system
After 32 years as a backbench MP, during which he has voted against Labour more than 500 times, Mr Corbyn must now try to piece together a frontbench team and demand loyalty from the parliamentary party.
He will face big tests in the coming days and weeks on Tory plans to curb unions, cut benefits and join airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Fallon warned Labour was now a 'serious risk to national security'.
In a rambling but uncompromising victory speech, Mr Corbyn repeatedly attacked the Tories but gave little sign he is willing to tone down his extreme socialist views to win broad public support.
To cheers from his supports, Mr Corbyn said: 'The Tories have used the economic crisis of 2008 to impose a terrible burden on the poorest people in this country.
The fightback now of our party gathers speed and gathers pace
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
'Those that have seen their wages frozen or cut, those that can't afford to even to sustain themselves properly, those that rely on foodbanks to get by. It is not right, it's not necessary and it's got to change.'
Offering his backing to Sadiq Khan, Labour's candidate for the London Mayoral elections, warning: 'I am fed up with the social cleansing of London by this Tory government and its policies.'
Four months after Britain rejected Mr Miliband for being too left-wing and not looking like a Prime Minister, Labour is now led by the most radical leader of a mainstream party the country has ever seen.
Punters were quick to place bets against Corbyn surviving as leader until the next general election, with thousands of pounds rushing in to bookmakers within an hour of his victory.
One Paddy Power customer put £2,000 on the new leader being deposed by 2020 at odds of 5/2, with a number of other gamblers placing bids of £100 against Corbyn lasting that long.
But privately senior Labour MPs branded the result a 'f***ing disaster' and warned he would not survive a year.
Another MP said it was 'absolutely disastrous' for the party. He said Mr Corbyn would be 'vicious' and move to deselect rebel MPs by flooding the party with the new supporters.
A former frontbencher said: 'I will give him 12 months. I can't see him lasting any longer than that.'
Mr Corbyn's Mexican wife Laura Alvarez was in the audience at the Queen Elizabeth Centre in central London to applaud the astonishing result
Mr Corbyn was joined on stage by Tom Watson, who was today elected as the new deputy leader of the Labour party, replacing Harriet Harman (right) who leaves the Labour frontbench after 28 years
MILIBAND TELLS CORBYN TO 'REACH OUT' TO HIS CRITICS
Former Labour leader Ed Miliband gave Mr Corbyn his backing
Former Labour leader Ed Miliband gave Mr Corbyn his support but warned he must 'reach out' to every part of the party.
He said: 'I offer Jeremy Corbyn my support in what is a very difficult and demanding job and I hope that people across the party will do the same.
'At the same time, I hope and expect that Jeremy will do everything he can to reach out and use the talents of people right across the party in the task of taking on the Tories and facing up to the very big challenges that we face.'
Many senior Labour MPs will quick to refuse
to serve under him as party staffers are braced for a 'purge' of non-Corbyn supporters from the Brewer's Green headquarters.
Ahead of the announcement, one staffer told MailOnline: 'The mood is not great. I'm getting made redundant on Monday. It's the Corbyn purge isn't it.'
Defeated leadership contender Yvette Cooper immediately announced that she would quit as shadow home secretary and return to the backbenches.
Shadow public health minister Liz Kendall, who secured just 4.5 per cent of the vote in the contest, is also expected to quit.
Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt and shadow health minister Jamie Reed were also quick to confirm they would refuse to play any part in the new leadership team.
Mr Hunt said: 'It is important to be honest about it - I have substantial political differences with Jeremy'.
Asked if he thought Mr Corbyn would find sufficient numbers of MPs willing to be part of his front bench, he said: 'That's for his team to discover. I imagine they are working on that.'
Mr Reed - whose Copeland constituency includes the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site - condemned Mr Corbyn's anti-nuclear policies as 'poorly informed and fundamentally wrong'.
And Mr Reed warned: 'No amount of well-meaning protest will protect the NHS, drive up standards, recruit more medical professionals or improve the accessibility of world-class healthcare to the British people. Only an elected Labour government will do this.'
Emma Reynolds, who has been an outspoken critic of Mr Corbyn's wavering support for the EU, quit as shadow communities secretary. Writing on Twitter she said: 'Congratulations to Jeremy - he needs to space to build his own team. I will serve our party and my constituents from backbenches.'
Others expected to refuse to serve in his team are current shadow chancellor Chris Leslie, shadow defence secretary Vernon Coaker, shadow transport secretary Michael Dugher, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Shabana Mahmood, shadow international development secretary Mary Creagh and shadow Cabinet Office minister Lucy Powell.
During the campaign, Ms Cooper and Ms Kendall both refused to work with Mr Corbyn team, while Mr Burnham insisted the party should always come first and was prepare to work with anyone.
However, shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna - a senior centrist who withdrew from the contest after a matter of days - issued a plea for the party to 'come together' behind its new leader.
In a post on Facebook, Mr Umunna said: 'Now the contest is over, we must respect the result, come together and focus on providing the most credible and effective opposition to the Tories.'
Mr Corbyn is expected to promote Angela Eagle and Owen Smith to more high profile roles, and his close friend and leftwing firebrand John McDonnell is in line for a top job.
Corbyn supporter Clive Lewis, who entered Parliament as MP for Norwich South in May, said: 'One of the things that Jeremy is about is about opening up the party, being more inclusive. Rather than the top-down 'Here is the policy', it's going to be from the bottom up and everyone will have an input into it.'
At the height of Corbynmania the party was deluged with members, swelled by new 113,000 registered supporters who paid just £3 to get a vote, along with an extra 148,182 affiliated supporters and 105,973 full members who have signed up since May.
It led to allegations of 'entryism' by extreme left-wingers and Trotskyites seeking to hijack the contest in favour of Mr Corbyn. There were also claims that many people did not receive their ballot papers in time to vote, leading to calls for the result to be delayed for three days.
But in his speech, Mr Corbyn said: 'During these amazing three months, our party has changed. We have grown enormously, because of the hopes of so many ordinary people for a different Britain, a better Britain, a more equal Britain, a more decent Britain.
'They are fed up with the inequality, the injustice, the unnecessary poverty. All those issues have brought people in in a spirit of hope and optimism.
'I say to the new members of the party, or those who have joined as registered or affiliated supporters - welcome. Welcome to our party, welcome to our movement. Can I say to those returning to the party who were in it before and felt disillusioned and went away. Welcome back, welcome back to your party, welcome home.'
He said his campaign had given the lie to claims that young Britons are apathetic about politics, showing instead that they are 'a very political generation that were turned off by the way in which politics was being conducted'. He said: 'We have to and must change that.'
Mr Corbyn said: 'The fightback now of our party gathers speed and gathers pace.'
Winning could be the easy part, as Mr Corbyn faces mass resignations from the frontbench with at least a dozen shadow cabinet ministers refusing to serve under him
After the party was swamped by 360,000 new members, Mr Corbyn stormed to victory in the first round easily beating better-known rivals Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall
Many senior Labour MPs will refuse to serve under him as party staffers are braced for a 'purge' of non-Corbyn supporters from the Brewer's Green headquarters
Iain McNicol, Labour's general secretary, earlier insisted that the party had 'weeded out' people who had tried to 'subvert our democracy'.
Addressing the leadership conference, He added: 'We have run a free and fair election.'
Mr McNicol added: 'In the leader we place our trust and on their shoulders they carry the hopes of millions in Britain and beyond our borders. It is not to be taken lightly or without a due sense of responsibility.
'Friends, this Labour Party is bigger than any of us.'
In a thinly-veiled swipe at Mr Corbyn, he warned the new leader: 'Our leaders have come and gone through the decades.'
He also aimed a dig at the thousands of £3 supporters behind Mr Corbyn's surge. He said: 'I look forward to seeing them on the doorstep.' Mr McNichol said he wanted them to do more than 'click a button' to vote in the leadership contest.
Economist Richard Murphy, whose 'people's quantitative easing' plan has been adopted by Corbyn, told the BBC: 'I'm going to be very pleased that ideas I've promoted for a long time are now, I guess, going to be part of Labour Party policy, and I will be delighted about that.'
Mr Corbyn only scraped on to the ballot paper after gaining the nominations of Labour MPs who did not want him to win and was installed with odds of 200/1.
Andy Burnham, the northern shadow health secretary who had shifted to the left, was seen as the frontrunner while shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper presented the strongest threat from the centre.
After strong Blairite candidates including Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt pulled out of the race, it was left to Liz Kendall to fly the flag for moderates in the party – with little success.
Union barons who backed Mr Corbyn over his rivals could not contain their delight at his victory.
Len McCluskey, general secretary of the UK's biggest union Unite, said: 'Voters can now look at Labour and see, unquestionably, that it stands for fairness, justice, peace and strong communities. It is the party of hope, ready to take on a Government hell-bent on making life worse for ordinary people.
'The task now for all of us who support Labour is to back the leadership team, to unite, to turn to face the Tories and hold them to account. It is what the voters expect, it is the way back to power and it is the duty of those at all levels of the party to deliver.'
UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis said: 'Today people for the first time in a decade are hearing a message of hope. 'A clarion call that there is another way, an alternative message that it doesn't need to be like this.
'People see in Jeremy a politician who has created a wave, a vision of a better, kinder world that works for everyone, not just a self-serving few. 'Jeremy has ignited a spark of hope, a spark that had been dampened for decades. This is a chance to claim back the heart and the soul of the party and make it our Labour Party once more.'
Caroline Flint (left) lost out in her bid to become deputy leader. Leadership hopeful Andy Burnham arrived for the result with his wife Marie-France van Heel (right)
The unassuming Islington MP has defied all expectations – including his own – to become leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition
The 66-year-old arrived at the conference centre in central London surrounded by supporters singing socialist anthem The Red Flag
Mr Corbyn was bundled into the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster amid a media scrum ahead of the leadership announcement
Outgoing acting leader Harriet Harman today issued a plea for unity, urging people across the party to take roles on the frontbench.
She told The Times: 'You've got a commitment to the party whoever is the leader.
'I've served under Michael Foot to Tony Blair, my first boss was Michael Meacher.
'The point is, it's a broad team and you don't decide you've got abilities and energy and commitment by virtue of who the leader is.'
Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone - tipped for a job under a Corbyn leadership - insisted he a is a 'consensual' politician who wants to have proper discussions about the direction of the party on key issues.
'It will work if Jeremy starts to connect with people,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
'He is nice and that connects with people. Don't forget, a big factor in John Major's surprise win in 92 was the fact that people thought John Major was nice.'
The ex-MP said he has 'never seen him lose his temper or even be rude to anyone'.
'And he has an economic strategy to modernise our economy, create a better range of jobs and build homes to rent.'
Shadow Scotland secretary Ian Murray told BBC News: 'Whoever is crowned winner, we will unite behind him. That's what the Labour Party and the Labour movement does.'
Mr Murray said that the almost 600,000 people signed up to vote in the election amounted to around one in 100 of the entire UK population, adding: 'The Labour Party should be very proud of the way it's been able to engage communities in this and the number of people who've turned out to vote and registered to vote.'
Yesterday the Labour party announced Sadiq Khan, the son of a bus driver and former human rights lawyer, would be the party's candidate in the London Mayoral election.
His victory over Tessa Jowell, a Cabinet minister under Tony Blair, was seen as further proof of the party's lurch to the left.
Mr Khan was one of the MPs responsible for securing Mr Corbyn a place on the ballot paper only to ensure a wider debate, despite backing actually Mr Burnham as leader.
Sadiq Khan's victory in the race to Labour's London Mayoral candidate over Tessa Jowell, a Cabinet minister under Tony Blair, was seen as further proof of the party's lurch to the left
'ONLY LABOUR CAN SPEAK FOR BRITAIN' TOM WATSON IS ELECTED NEW DEPUTY LEADER
Tom Watson has been elected deputy leader
Tom Watson has been elected as Labour's new deputy leader.
The former minister who launched a bid to oust Tony Blair from Number 10 was seen as a bruiser in Gordon Brown's camp.
After leading the charge on phone-hacking and allegations of historic child abuse, he has built a reputation as a behind-the-scenes fixer.
He will have to play a key role in ensuring unity in the party, and many in Labour hope he will be able to prevent a Corbyn leadership end in disaster.
The West Bromwich East MP had been overwhelming bookies' favourite to be Labour's number two and saw off challenges from Ben Bradshaw, Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle and Caroline Flint.
Mr Watson took 39.4 per cent of votes - 160,852 first preferences out of the 408,470 ballots cast - in the first round of counting at the QEII centre in Westminster.
There was a standing ovation and huge cheers as his victory was announced.
'Only Labour can speak for the real Britain,' he told the conference.
Mr Watson said: 'I promised to back the new leader 100 per cent and I plan to do exactly that.
'Only through unity comes strength, strength we need to fight the Tories.
'In the Tory second term Labour is the last line of defence for the millions of people who suffer in their homes.
'Only Labour can speak for the real Britain: we haven't always but that's what we have to do again - we can and we will, I promise.'
As well as appointing a new frontbench, the new leader will have to prepare to appear on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show tomorrow morning and the first confrontation with David Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.
The Conservatives have timed key votes on controversial anti-strike laws for this week to pile pressure on Labour's links to the unions.
Having resisted the temptation to comment on the contest for months, the Tories are preparing to take the gloves off.
Mr Cameron yesterday warned victory for Mr Corbyn would be bad for the country as it would break a consensus between the main parties on issues such as nationalisation, nuclear weapons, taxation and union laws
'The country is stronger when you have shared objectives rather than when you've got someone who wants to take us back to the days of Michael Foot and Arthur Scargill,' he said.
The contest showed that Labour had 'completely vacated the intellectual playing field and no longer, in my view, represents working people', he said.
Tee-total vegetarian nicknamed 'Jelly': Meet Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist hardliner raised in a manor who has voted against Labour more time than David Cameron
Labour's new leader may have been nicknamed 'Jelly' as a child – but his politics are anything but wobbly.
Born into comfortable middle-class wealth and raised in a £1million manor, privately-educated Jeremy Bernard Corbyn could have been forgiven for being a Tory.
But for the past 32 years, Mr Corbyn has been the most uncompromisingly left-wing MP in the Commons – defying party orders more than 500 times, marching with rival parties against the Labour government and even calling for an uprising against British troops.
Corbyn at Adams Grammar School, which dates back to 1656, still upholds standards of education excellence
Privileged: Jeremy Corbyn's childhood home, Yew Tree Manor, which had two acres of land and outbuildings
During his political career even David Cameron has not managed to vote against the Labour party more times than Mr Corbyn.
And yet the 66-year-old tee-total vegetarian finds himself leader of the opposition, demanding loyalty from 231 Labour MPs.
Born in Chippenham, Wiltshire in 1949, he spent his first five years in a five-bedroom detached house in half an acre of land in the picturesque village of Kington St Michael.
The family moved to Shropshire when Mr Corbyn's father, David, a brilliant electrical engineer, changed jobs.
They settled into Yew Tree Manor, a seven-bedroom house that was once part of the Duke of Sutherland's sprawling Lilleshall estate.
Mr Corbyn was an early supporter of Tony Benn during the Labour party's bitter civil war in the 1980s
For the past 32 years, Mr Corbyn has been the most uncompromisingly left-wing MP in the Commons – defying party orders more 500 times, marching with rival parties against the Labour government and even calling for an uprising against British troops
WINNING BY A WHISKER: LABOUR'S FIRST BEARDED ELECTED LEADER
Before today, Jeremy Corbyn's biggest victory in Westminster was winning the Parliamentary Beard of the Year contest for a record five times.
Keir Hardie and beard
In fact he is the first man with a beard to ever stand in a contest for the Labour leadership.
But he is the second bearded person to lead his party. The first was Keir Hardie, who led Labour from 1906-08 but was not elected to the post.
George Lansbury, Labour leader from 1932-5, possessed a bushy moustache and sideburns but never went for a complete beard.
Two Labour prime ministers have sported moustaches: Ramsay MacDonald, leader from 1922-31, and Clement Attlee, leader from 1935-55.
The house had two acres of land, outbuildings and a paddock and is now worth around £1.2 million.
Mr Corbyn's parents met in the 1930s at a meeting for left-wing activists supporting Spain's Republicans in the fight against Franco's fascists.
His father, the son of a solicitor, grew up in East London, where he worked as an engineer during the war. His mother Norma was a scientist who retrained as a maths teacher.
Despite their socialist views, Mr Corbyn and his three older brothers - Edward, Andrew and Piers – were sent to the private Castle House primary school where fees today cost more than £7,000 a year.
The future Labour leader and his brothers then attended Adams Grammar School in Newport after passing their 11 plus.
At Adams Grammar School, which dates back to 1656, Mr Corbyn made a name for himself as a left-wing firebrand taking part in mock election debates as the Labour candidate.
Mr Corbyn, already a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, refused to take part in the school cadet force.
'We were all supposed to join the cadet force at 15 and prance around in uniform every Wednesday,' he said.
'The big thing was to visit an Army camp. I was again in a minority and refused to join this thing. I was put on gardening duties.'
Despite not being very academic, leaving school with two E-grade A-levels, he went on to a degree course at North London Polytechnic – but left before finishing.
Mr Corbyn has never deviated from his early opposition to militarism.
He wants to withdraw Britain from Nato, scrap the Trident nuclear weapon programme and slash the size of the Armed Forces.
The Islington North MP says: 'Why do we have to have planes, transport aircraft, aircraft carriers and everything else to get anywhere in the world. Why?'
Mr Corbyn's uncompromising politics have even affected his personal life.
His fixation with campaigning caused the collapse of his first marriage to the academic Jane Chapman.
Two years ago, Mr Corbyn married 46-year-old left-wing activist Laura Alvarez (left) in her native Mexico
Jeremy Corbyn and his first wife Jane Chapman from a cutting in the Hornsey Journal from 1974. They split because he spent too much time on politics
Mr Corbyn's second wife Claudia Bracchitta, an exiled Chilean designer who he met in the Eighties
They were councillors in North London but split in 1979 after she tired of coming second to his politics.
'He's a genuinely nice guy. The problem is that his politics are to the exclusion of other kinds of human activities, such as going out for a meal, to the cinema or buying clothes,' she said.
Despite his own privileged education, his second marriage then fell apart because of his strong opinions about comprehensive schools.
He had met wife number two Claudia Bracchitta, an exiled Chilean designer, in the Eighties when they were in the audience for a speech by Ken Livingstone, then leader of Greater London Council.
The couple had three sons, but broke up in 1999 after she wanted to send one of the boys to a top grammar school.
Claudia refused to send their son to an inner-city comprehensive and the marriage couldn't stand the strain.
She won the day, with their son going to Queen Elizabeth's grammar school in Barnet — nine miles from their home in Islington.
At the time, she complained Corbyn was 'first the politician and second the parent'. She explained: 'My children's education is my absolute priority.
'The decision [to send our son to grammar school] was made by myself alone and without the consent of my husband. The difficulties of making decisions under these circumstances have played an important role in bringing about a regrettable marital break-up.
'I could not compromise my son's future for my husband's career. I regret it is going to be difficult for Jeremy, but it was an impossible decision. Nobody really is a winner.'
At the time, asked whether the split was 'an issue of principle', Mr Corbyn said: 'I feel very strongly about comprehensive education, yes.'
Two years ago, Mr Corbyn married left-wing activist Laura Alvarez, 46, in her native Mexico.
Before becoming an MP he worked as a full time union official and was a councillor in Haringey, north London
He chairs the Stop the War Coalition, which he helped to found, and in Parliament he is a core member of the Socialist Campaign Group.
In 1984, he was arrested for breaking a ban on anti-apartheid protests outside the South African High Commission.
He was also heavily criticised for inviting two former IRA prisoners to Parliament shortly after the Brighton bombing.
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