Crowds of Jeremy Corbyn worshippers were turned away from an overflowing anti-austerity rally at the Quaker Meeting House in Brighton on Monday night.
In the end, the man himself did not appear, but they stuck around anyway to witness a display of the kind of old-time socialist religion that was meant to have died out with the advent of Tony Blair.
Impromptu speeches by trade union leaders on the steps of the meeting house, to the distant sound of wild cheering and applause from the hall. Calls for unity and solidarity. Warnings about establishment conspiracies.
This was the kind of politics that you don't see on television any more.
And there was plenty of scorn for the media among those waiting to get in.
'Ruling class'
"When are you going to report something positive about Jeremy?," asked one woman on learning I worked for the BBC. She was quickly joined by others.
My protestations about impartiality cut little ice with them.
"The attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell over the past few weeks in the media are just the start of what's going to come," warned Fire Brigades Union leader Matt Wrack.
"They are lies!" cried a voice from the crowd.
Katy Clark addresses the overflow crowd at the Quaker Meeting House
Corbyn and McDonnell "represent a serious challenge to the establishment, in reality to the British ruling class" he told the crowd.
"MI5, Special Branch and the CIA are all watching this conference, and watching what is going on in the shadow cabinet, with the aim of undermining it."
Wrack's union is no longer affiliated to the Labour Party. Like many others at Monday night's event they walked away during the Blair years when the party abandoned their traditional brand of socialism.
They backed Jeremy Corbyn's leadership bid but "didn't expect to get very far".
Now, said Wrack, to the amazement of many people who had given up on politics, they had "the beginnings of a genuine mass political movement of the left for the first time in decades".
'No factions'
Katy Clark, who lost her North Ayrshire and Arran seat to the SNP in May, said she still couldn't believe John McDonnell was actually the shadow chancellor. She told a story about Jeremy Corbyn that cast him in a saintly light - he had donated his shoes to raise funds for the Palestinian solidarity campaign and cycled home in his socks.
Inside the hall, Ian Hodson, president of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, was battling a faulty microphone as he rallied the crowd with the kind of speech that makes words like "barnstorming" and "firebrand" redundant.
"No factions, in-fighting or division!" he shouted, echoing the message of many speakers.
John McDonnell called for unity and solidarity
"The difference between a worker and a slave is the right to withdraw your labour," he said as he launched an attack on the government's Trade Union bill.
"We will fight. We will fight against these people who want to take our human rights, we will work with those people who believe in democracy. We will take the necessary action, which includes civil disobedience."
John McDonnell's speech was more measured, but no less clear in its message: The Labour Party was firmly on the side of the workers again. He repeated his call for non-violent direct action to defend trade union rights and fight cuts, praising disabled activists who had occupied the offices of fitness-to-work test company Atos.
'No fun'
He ended with a call for solidarity and was greeted by a standing ovation and a chorus of "the workers, united, will never be defeated".
McDonnell's left has spent so long on the margins of the Labour Party that they had given up hope of wielding real influence, let alone being elected to the leadership.
Matt Wrack warned about enemies in the establishment
The Labour Representation Committee, which organised Monday night's event, was formed by McDonnell and a tiny group of supporters frustrated by Labour's direction under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Taking its name from a precursor of the Labour Party, set up by Kier Hardie in 1900, the idea had been to form a new party to represent the working classes and trade unionists in Parliament.
But it hadn't really worked, explained founding member Gordon Nordell to the crowd outside the Quaker Meeting House.
Instead of cheering crowds, the same "six, seven, eight, nine, ten" people turned up to meetings - and that was "no fun".
That has all changed now though. They can't quite believe it, but they have got their party back.
