Left groups and people

Janine Booth reviews Bob Crow: socialist, leader, fighter — A political biography, by Gregor Gall (Manchester University Press) As the first book about Bob Crow published since his untimely death three years ago, Gregor Gall’s political biography of Crow provides us with an opportunity to review his life and his time in the railworkers’ union NUR and its successor RMT, to highlight the key reasons for his effectiveness and impact, and to examine the limits of those. The book promises to assess Crow from a critical Marxist perspective, in particular looking at his personality, politics and...

Interviewed by ITV on 15 May, Jeremy Corbyn said that Brexit means the free movement of citizens between the UK and the EU is going to end, even if Labour wins the election. In January Corbyn had said much the same, only later to retract, saying that he was not proposing new restrictions on the rights of people to move to the UK. At that time he hinted that free movement would be part of a negotiation to keep the UK in the single market. No such clarification now. Although Labour’s shadow Brexit Secretary Kier Starmer has given a commitment that Labour would “unilaterally guarantee” the...

About 500 people attended Momentum’s “Building to win” event in Birmingham on 25 March. As expected there was no chance to have a debate about the way forward for Momentum, just 15 sessions ranging from “Nice people finish first” to “Community organising at the grassroots” and “Momentum Trade Union Solidarity”. Empowerment was the theme ,but this did not mean giving people any power, just making people feel good about campaigning or their own importance to the movement. Similarly a lot of the talk about how to engage and debate was aimed at lessening sharp debate, rounding the edges of any...

A Socialist Appeal member, expelled from the Labour Party, recently went court to contest the expulsion. Unsurprisingly the Party had their side upheld and he will not be reinstated, at least not through court procedures. The submission to the court from the Labour Party is the first clear statement of the pretexts they use for suspending and expelling socialists from the Party, including supports of the AWL. Labour’s document quotes Chapter 2.4.1.B “A member of the Party who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the Party... shall...

The Momentum Grassroots conference on Saturday 11 March (10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Conway Hall, London, WC1R 4RL) presents an important opportunity to shape and coordinate the work of local groups after the 10 January coup in the organisation. We hope for a large turnout, with delegates representing groups from around the country. Workers’ Liberty have backed this meeting as a means to give local groups, for the first time, an opportunity to get together and discuss the way forward. While we do not want to see a rival organisation to Momentum, the election of a new coordinating group at the...

Recent strikes by “gig economy” workers (e.g. Deliveroo) are profoundly significant. They explode the myth, peddled by some on both left and right, that so-called precarious workers can’t organise, and that the proliferation of those types of work is in the process of rendering labour organising historically redundant. Some on the radical left confer a particular significance on these sort of strikes and have coupled them with the notion of “the social strike”. This idea, for instance by the group Plan C, has been put forward as a way to overcome the current weakness of organised labour as a...

Last month’s elections to Momentum National Co-ordinating Group saw 75% of the 12 seats elected by Momentum members (out of 32 NCG places) go to candidates endorsing the constitution imposed in January. In the North and Scotland region, the pro-constitution slate won all four seats. In the Midlands, Wales, East and West region they took three, and in the South East Region two. Yet only 42% voted for pro-coup people. Their over-representation was due to this being a first-past-the-post election, so the biggest minority could sweep the board. The total vote for the candidates explicitly opposing...

This explanation by Jon Lansman of recent events in Momentum was circulated in the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. Since it contains nothing confidential, and is the only political explanation available from the Momentum leadership other than the article by Christine Shawcroft in Labour Briefing (Feb 2017), which we replied to last week, we reprint it here. Maintaining the centre-left coalition I wanted also to counter the lies and misinformation which are widely repeated by sectarian elements on the Left who wish to turn Momentum from a broad alliance it was intended to be, seeking to...

This report of Momentum’s National Committee which met on Saturday 28 January is by Ed Whitby and Tracy McGuire, northern regional delegates. More can be found on Ed’s blog . Approximately 20 committee members attended the 28 January National Committee with a number of apologies. There were also over 30 observers, mostly from London, though also a number from further a field. With apologies, it seemed that approximately half the the National Committee supported this meeting going ahead including members from FBU, Red Labour and LRC, LGBT+, Disabled, Womens and Black Connexions. The majority of...

Momentum MxV is an “innovative new digital democracy platform.” So said an email on 24 November, signed just “Momentum”, to Momentum members. MxV claims to be a “space to submit proposals for Momentum’s conference, discuss the proposals and decide which ones you support”. About 125 proposals had been submitted as of 28 November, attracting between 176 and two “support” clicks each. Without the knowledge of the National Committee, due to meet on Saturday 3rd, it appears that those around the national office of Momentum who are pushing the model of “clicktivism” have tried to create a “fait...