By John Pickard, Former National Committee member of Momentum.
When Momentum was first founded in 2016, on the wave of enthusiasm after Jeremy Corbyn’s first election as Party leader, it had somewhere around 40,000 members and it had the potential of consolidating a strong left-wing inside the Labour Party. It did not fulfil that potential, largely because of the bureaucratic leadership at the top.
In January 2017, those around Jon Lansman – legally the “owners” of the organisation – organised a coup over the heads of the membership. The elected National Committee was dissolved (by its own “steering committee”), bringing in a “consultative” committee at the top, the NCG. A poll of members, masquerading as a plebiscite, confirmed the new constitution.
Since that coup, Momentum has slid inexorably to the right, its greatest failure being its decision at Labour conference in 2018 not to support Open Selection, against the wishes of the majority of CLP delegates who were, ironically, probably mostly Momentum supporters. Nowadays, the Momentum leadership is just as confused and over-conciliatory towards the right wing.
An article in yesterday’s Guardian (May 15) emphasised again the political weakness of the majority on its National Consultative Group (NCG), always seeking some new compromises with Labour’s hard-right leadership. Momentum, according to the Guardian, is seeking to make a “strategic” retreat to local government, focusing less on the parliamentary party and more on feeding a “growing appetite for change and ambition” within local communities.
Asking the Devil to renounce sin
The Guardian quotes a Momentum source saying: “There’s a hunger for something more than New Labour reruns, a sense that the status quo cannot continue, and a recognition that the massive crises facing Britain demand real ambition.” It is as if Momentum is appealing for Keir Starmer not be Keir Starmer, like asking the Devil to renounce Sin.
What this means is that the leadership of Momentum are still in retreat. Left Horizons has argued that there is only one justification for being in the Labour Party at the present time, and that is to organise against the Tory-lite infiltrators who have hi-jacked the leadership. Momentum is not doing this; it is retreating into municipal politics.
According to the Guardian, Momentum wishes “to showcase transformative change being delivered locally, with policies including democratic ownership and council housebuilding, which have proved vote winners on the doorstep – as demonstrated by local election victories in Worthing and Preston”.
A Momentum “insider” told the newspaper, “We have two key aims: build our bases at the grassroots and build coalitions across the labour movement for transformative policies. It’s all about the long game.” This is code for “we are going to keep our heads down, concentrate on local government and hope the right wing don’t see us.” This is the road to accommodation – not staying and fighting, but staying at all costs.
Starmer will not allow a ‘broad church’ in the Party
The same approach, unfortunately, is adopted by John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn. He has called on Keir Starmer to “maximise the party’s vote and ensure Labour is a broad church”. But John really ought to know by now that such an appeal will be treated with contempt by the right. Ask Jeremy Corbyn. There is not a cat in Hell’s chance that the leadership will allow “respect for a whole range of views across the political spectrum within the Labour party”.
What the Momentum leadership and John McDonnell need to understand is that – in direct contradiction to the soft left – Labour’s right wing are utterly ruthless. Given the right pretexts – and they may yet be manufactured– Momentum itself and John McDonnell may be subject to discipline, as Starmer gets “dirty and nasty” in his fight against the left. See editorial on Starmer’s plans here.
In parallel with the Momentum leadership sidling quietly away from a fight with the right wing, we also see a shift away from it being a ‘member-led’ organisation, as it claims to be. The following is aggregation of a series of Tweets by Lorcan Whitehead, a member of the Momentum NCG and chair of North Essex Momentum:
As an elected rep I understand that the decisions the NCG makes won’t always go the way I want. That’s the nature of collective decision-making, and not necessarily a reason to speak out.
Endorsement of future leadership candidates
However, this month there was a decision which I fundamentally disagree with, and I want to be clear to all Momentum members – and especially those who voted for me – about where I stand on it.
In April-May 2022, Momentum members voted on proposals created by Momentum members to rewrite our constitution. In that vote, members were presented with two options for Momentum endorsements in future Labour Leader and Deputy Leader elections:
1. Momentum members will select the candidate Momentum endorses in Labour Leadership and Deputy leadership elections via a ballot of all members, with all candidates requesting Momentum’s endorsement being on the ballot, and with the added option of no endorsement.
2. Power will remain in the hands of the NCG to determine the process by which it selects who to endorse for the Leader or Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in an election. 85% voted in favour of option
85% voted in favour of option 1.
At February’s NCG meeting we agreed to amend the constitution to state that there must be a ballot of all members, and that all candidates requesting Momentum’s endorsement would automatically be included so long as they were members of the SCG [Socialist Campaign Group of MPs].
NCG to endorse without any consultation with members
There was disagreement about what should happen if no SCG members made the ballot (an important question given the likelihood that this happens next time), and it was agreed to bring this back to a future meeting.
At May’s NCG meeting we were presented with a range of options on this:
1. Full discretion for the NCG to decide Momentum’s endorsement without any requirement to consult members.
2. The NCG decides who to back and members vote to accept or reject.
3. The NCG picks at least two candidates for members to vote on.
4. All candidates seeking Momentum’s endorsement are put to members to vote on.
5. All candidates that make it onto the ballot are put to members to vote on.
I and other reps elected on the Your Momentum slate argued and voted for option 4. However, others argued in favour of option 1, on the grounds that all other options would hamper Momentum’s ability to cut deals with soft left candidates.
Given the debacle of the 2020 Rayner endorsement (where members were presented with one candidate chosen by the NCG and only given the option to accept or reject), we insisted that we must trust our members to have control over who Momentum endorses in future.
We pointed out that despite the then Momentum leadership thinking it was a clever tactical move, Momentum hasn’t actually gained any tangible political advantage for the left by backing Rayner – who has supported every move to the right and attack on the left that Starmer has made, and shown zero loyalty to the left.
Fundamental question about how we do politics
Despite our arguments and votes, despite the fact it directly contradicts the overwhelming vote in Refounding, and despite it leaving members with even less say than in 2020, option 1 was carried (minutes and a record of votes will be added here)
(To be clear, we have pushed back successfully on other proposals we have considered inadequate at recent NCG meetings, but our lack of majority means it was a matter of time before we were defeated on the substantial issue of democracy in Momentum.)
I want to be clear about my position on this because I believe this is a fundamental question about how we do politics – by engaging and empowering the grassroots of our movement so that it can hold to account all those elected to represent us, or by cutting backroom deals with powerful people which will supposedly advance our cause (but rarely do).
Too often people at the top use the promise of the latter as an excuse not to do the former. I will keep using my seat on the NCG to push for a more democratic, bottom-up form of politics.
This series of Tweets, by a genuine, and no doubt frustrated, left on the NCG, is a further indication that Momentum has not recovered since the original coup stymied its surge towards a mass membership. It is an open question whether or not it can play a decisive role, or indeed any role, in Labour’s left in the future.
