Momentum

That the Labour left movement Momentum has released a statement taking on antisemitism in the Labour Party and the left is welcome. Until now Momentum had been silent on the issue, and had made no suggestions for political education or training on the issue. The statement from the group’s National Coordinating Group goes some way to addressing these shortfalls but is not as comprehensive as the one agreed by the Momentum Steering Committee in 2016 but never released. The 2016 statement calls for the implementation of the Chakrabarti report and for a fairer disciplinary process that would avoid...

The decision of the Labour Representation Committee, Grassroots Black Left and Red Labour to challenge the official Centre Left Grassroots Alliance slate for Labour’s National Executive is a tactical mistake. We agree with these comrades that the method selection for the CLGA slate has been opaque for some time. It is unclear how groups are able to be involved and level of control they then have over the agreed candidates once in office. The decision of Momentum to unilaterally declare their full slate and push that through the CLGA is also unwelcome. However, with only a short time left to...

On Saturday 24 March around 100 Labour Party activists attended “Re-imagining Local Government: London for the many and not the few”. This event came out of discussions between London Momentum members and left activists. We wanted to create a forum for the left to think about what it would do if it won seats in the May elections. An ill prepared left, devoid of strategy and ideas could be subsumed in the right-wing swamp that currently makes up the majority of councils. Local government policy is dominated by a managerial ethos in which officers dictate many of the decisions and councillors...

The withdrawal of Jon Lansman from the contest to replace Iain McNicol as the next Labour Party General Secretary makes almost certain that Jennie Formby will get the job. The contest should have been an opportunity to talk about what a left-led Labour Party should be like in its culture and structures. It became an opaque fight where any differences between candidates were unclear and impossible for ordinary Labour members to decode. For that reason it was absolutely right — if you take his stated reasons for standing on face value — for Jon Lansman to stand. He was right against the...

The contest which has opened up over who will replace Iain McNicol as General Secretary of the Labour Party should be an opportunity to talk about what a left-led Labour Party should be like in its culture and structures. Whether it can be anything other than an acrimonious factional battle, and one that is impossible for ordinary Labour members to decode, remains to be seen. First of all it should be an open contest. That was Momentum Chair Jon Lansman's stated reason for standing, and he is right against the leadership of the Labour Party who want Unite official Jennie Formby to get the job...

The 17 February meeting of the Labour Party National Policy Forum (NPF) saw a row over electing a new chair. Created as part of the Blairite process of blocking internal democracy, the NPF substitutes itself for the fully demonstratic policy-making conference that is needed. Abolition of the NPF as one of the aims of the democracy review would be a welcome step. So what was the row? Former National Executive Disputes Committee Chair, and previous member of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance slate for the NEC, Ann Black looked like she had the votes in the room to become the chair of the NPF...

Momentum has proposed a slate for the elections to the constituency section of Labour’s National Executive, to be held this summer. As we understand it, this slate has also been (narrowly) approved by the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance. The first-time additions of Ann Henderson, Huda Elmi and Nav Mishra to the slate do make it the most diverse it has ever been. However, not everyone is happy. The departure of Rhea Wolfson and Christine Shawcroft, possibly to help them secure parliamentary seats is regrettable. Christine Shawcroft is a long-standing activist on the Labour left, has regularly...

The resignation of Claire Kober, the Blairite leader of Haringey Council, has left the Haringey Development Vehicle, the scheme her leadership had championed, in tatters. It was a victory for the Stop HDV campaign and the Labour activists who had systematically worked to select candidates for the May council election who opposed the sell-off of £2 billion of public land, the destruction of social housing, and a partnership with the blacklisting giant Lendlease. The intervention of Labour’s National Executive on this issue has led to thousands of column inches and multiple TV appearances for...

The labour movement should rally to the defence of Labour National Executive member and Momentum leader Jon Lansman against George Galloway’s threat to sue him for defamation. Galloway says he has “instructed solicitors to bring a case for defamation against Jon Lansman”. That is a response to a tweet by Lansman defending Jewish comedian David Baddiel after Galloway made a tweet (now deleted) that “no supporter of the Palestinian people” would march “behind” Baddiel (apparently a reference to planned protests against Donald Trump visiting Britain). Over the years Galloway has run or threatened...

The author Alan Sillitoe described how, as a national serviceman aged 19 in 1955, he was got to read Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by an eager colleague saying: “This is the book which won the 1945 election for Labour”. The Tories, in 1945, tried to counter by mass-distributing a book of their own, Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. The political shift of 1945 was shaped by books, and conversations around books, not by tweets or memes. If we want a similar big shift today, we need similarly heavy ammunition. Over the last two and a half years, allowing for...