Momentum

Left antisemitism and the "#JC9"

The decision of Momentum to remove their endorsement of Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) secretary Pete Willsman from the #JC9 slate for Labour National Executive Committee has exposed fractures between Momentum, its supporters, other parts of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, and the Labour Leader's office. Willsman has been dropped because of a rant he made at a Labour National Executive Committee (NEC) in which he says he has seen no evidence of antisemitism in the Labour Party, despite sitting on the Disputes Panel for many years, which is currently dealing with multiple...

What should Labour do about policing?

Carrie Evans spoke at Socialism makes Sense: Ideas for Freedom 2018 on 23-24 June about Labour, crime, and policing. Labour have positioned themselves as the party of law and order. Most notably they are calling for police funding to go back to pre-2010 levels, and promising 25,000 extra police on the streets. In London, Sadiq Khan has promised police significant powers to ramp up stop and search, and backed something called the “Al Capone”-style task force, arresting and prosecuting suspected gang members for any crime whether gang related or not, in order to get them off the streets. There...

Make Labour the "party of strikes"

There are many who think that trade unions have had their day. While new and powerful labour movements are emerging around the world, on the whole the labour movement in Britain is very much on the defensive. I was born at the end of the miners’ strike, and I am in no doubt that trade unionists are on the back foot. The trade union movement is now half the size that it was at its 1979 peak, with vastly fewer elected workplace reps and shop stewards. Strike numbers are at an all-time low. Around Momentum’s foundation, many debates fluttered around about post-class politics, with a big push to...

Momentum should oppose Brexit

#StopToryBrexit — A Final Say For The Many We are proud members of Momentum and consistent supporters of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party and of the 2017 election manifesto. We deplore the persistent attacks of the right-wing of the Labour Party and their attempts to weaponise the issue of Brexit against our party leadership. But we are equally opposed to the Tory Brexit now on offer. It is a disaster for working class people, public services, peace in Ireland, migrants, the environment, human rights, jobs and our children’s futures — the complete opposite of everything a...

London Momentum meets

About 50 people came to the London regional Momentum meeting on 2 June. A bigger turnout then the previous meeting and with people attending from more local groups then previously. The meeting was able to discuss a range of experiences from different groups as well as a useful and informative discussion as to how to build a successful profile on social media. Members of Lewisham raised the issue of democracy and the response of the national office to the attempted breakaway AGM. Others talked about the challenges of engaging more young people and organising in CLPs particularly when they are...

Educate, agitate, organise

Around 40 Labour Party activists attended Southampton Momentum’s weekend school from 19-21 May. The event included plenary discussions on perspectives for Momentum and Labour, as well as sessions focused on planning local activity. Four external speakers led workshops, on the history of the Labour Party; socialist-feminism and building a working-class women’s movement; understanding and combating antisemitism on the left; and housing struggles. Attendees included a diverse range of comrades, from veteran activists with long histories on the far left through to new, young activists recently...

Haringey: “the first Corbyn Labour council”

We do face a challenge with the budget. We have lost about 53% of our budget since 2010 and it’s not going to get any better. We have a lot of people in temporary housing, we have a lot of people waiting for council housing and it’s not good enough. We have changed direction on housing, and our policies are now more in line with the current Labour Party Leader and the 2017 [General Election] manifesto. People are going to watch us as “the first Corbyn council”, to expect us to fail and will perceive anything we might see as a setback as a failure. I don’t blame parts of the Party for feeling...

Build the left against Brexit

Pressure is growing inside Labour for it to take a firm stance against Brexit. Some of this pressure comes from the right of the Party. On Sunday 3 June Sadiq Kahn called for Corbyn to oppose Britain’s departure from the single market. He advocated Labour supports an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill which aims to keep Britain in the European Economic Area, effectively signing the UK up to the so-called “Norway option”, which would retain access to the Single Market. The Withdrawal Bill is scheduled to return to the House of Commons on 12 June. When it does, MPs will vote on a total of 15...

Workers' Liberty: who we are

Who are we? What are Workers' Liberty and Solidarity? We are a political strand in the flux of the broadly-Corbynite left, a flux which may be reshaping the left for a long period to come. We are the socialist, class-struggle, consistently-democratic, internationalist strand in the left. That is why we meet such hostility from the NGO-politics, Stalinistic or semi-Stalinist, bureaucratic, nationalistic, and "kitsch anti-imperialist" bloc. That small but vocal bloc represents the deadweight inflicted on the left in the Blair-Brown-Cameron decades, but with feet. In the first place, we are the...

We want unity in Lewisham

Activists in Lewisham for Corbyn (the established Momentum group in Lewisham) are campaigning for a new, properly conducted, democratic AGM, and for the election of a broad, politically pluralist committee representative of Momentum activists in Lewisham. This comes, after National Momentum decided to recognise a farcically inaccessible, irregular and undemocratic ad hoc split meeting in the front bar of a pub as an official Lewisham Momentum AGM. Lewisham for Corbyn have submitted complaints about this and the campaign of lies and slander conducted by Stalinist Red London supporters, absolute...

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