SECONDS out, round one. It’s Corbyn versus Smith in the political title fight of the year.

Well, sort of – the US presidential election will probably trump it, pardon the pun.

Nevertheless, the battle between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith for the leadership of the Labour Party is important – not least because for any democracy to function properly it needs government to be held to account by an effective opposition.

We do not have an effective opposition in the UK at the moment.

And Labour MPs who think they are providing effective opposition to the government are deluding themselves.

Those of us of a certain age remember well the utter chaos Labour found itself in during the early 1980s.

The party became unelectable under Michael Foot’s leadership and it was riven by splits.

The so-called Gang of Four – Labour heavyweights Shirley Williams, David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Bill Rodgers – left the party to form the SDP, which eventually merged with the Liberals.

City halls in places like Liverpool were run by the far Left faction known as the Militant Tendency.

It took courageous leadership from Neil Kinnock to make Labour an electable party again, even if it was Tony Blair who benefited from the former Islwyn MP’s bruising internal battles.

Today Labour is pretty much where it was then.

Despite their denials, the idea of a split – which would be as disastrous for Labour now as it was in 1981 – is on the minds of the majority of the party’s MPs.

I have absolutely no doubt that if Mr Corbyn wins the leadership election at the end of September it will signal the end of the Labour Party in its current form.

Mr Corbyn does not have the confidence of the parliamentary party but he does have huge support among Labour’s membership, which is at its highest level for decades.

The parliamentary party is Her Majesty’s Opposition.

It is inconceivable that the majority of Labour MPs who have denounced Mr Corbyn’s leadership will suddenly pledge allegiance to him if he beats Mr Smith.

Mr Smith says his leadership campaign is about saving the Labour Party.

Mr Corbyn says he will not stand down because he was elected with a huge majority by rank-and-file members.

Whatever happens in September, Labour cannot continue as it is.

Mr Corbyn’s pleas for loyalty from his own MPs have fallen on deaf ears, not least because he was a serial rebel from the backbenches.

We had the ludicrous sight this week of the leader of the Labour Party voting against his own party’s policy during the Trident debate.

Labour is in a mess at parliamentary level. And yet the party controls the Assembly and many councils across Wales.

The majority of the party’s AMs and councillors – certainly the ones I have spoken to privately – are in despair at what is happening in Westminster.

They are attempting to get on with the job of running Wales and many of its towns and cities while their party is a laughing stock at UK level.

Mr Corbyn presents himself as a politician of conviction, someone who wants a ‘nicer’ brand of politics to prevail.

Yet there are some of his supporters behaving in a disgraceful manner.

Where Labour will be in the autumn is anyone’s guess.

If the election does end with a permanent split in the party then there will be no effective opposition to the government for many years.

New political parties do not do well at elections.

The same can be said of parties that cannot present themselves to voters as unified.

The EU referendum was meant to expose the Tories as a divided party. Instead it is Labour that has ended up in perhaps the biggest crisis in its history.