Momentum

Aaron Bastani, co-founder of online news platform Novara Media, has responded to an article in the Guardian on 26 May about calls for a debate on Brexit at the 2018 Labour conference... by trying to witch-hunt the AWL. The article quotes three anti-Brexit Momentum members in support of the call for a debate. On Twitter Bastani accuses the AWL of being behind a “plot” with the Labour right to destabilise the Corbyn leadership through a debate on Brexit policy. To build up his ludicrous picture of an AWL plot, Bastani says Rida Vaquas, one of the activists quoted in the Guardian , is a member of...

The Labour Party Democracy Review is now in its third and final period, inviting submissions on the following issues: “Electing our Leadership, How we Make Policy and The Way We Work.” It still remains unclear how the findings of the review will be presented and what the status is of the various rule change motions remitted last year on the advice of the National Executive, or when they will be considered. Meanwhile Momentum is carrying out a consultation of its membership on which proposals it will forward. They have asked its members to answer “Yes” or “No” to 13 questions. Longer policy...

The Chairs of Labour Students and Young Labour, respectively Melantha Chittenden and Miriam Mirwitch, have issued a letter calling for a vote on Brexit policy at the 2018 Labour Party conference. The response from the Momentum-sponsored left majority on the Young Labour National Committee has been uproar, and an angry statement in response. Yet Brexit is overwhelmingly unpopular among Labour Party members, and among young people in the UK. Further, according to the National Centre for Social Research, opinion polls have shown that “remain in the EU” has enjoyed a steady lead over “leave the EU...

The candidate backed by the Labour right, Janet Daby, has been selected as Labour’s Parliamentary candidate in the ultra-safe Labour seat of Lewisham East. Daby won with 288 votes, with left candidates Sakina Sheikh and Claudia Webbe getting 134 and 35 votes. The other right-winger shortlisted, Brenda Dacres, dropped out the day before the selection meeting. Is this a defeat for the Labour left? In a sense, obviously. But let’s unpack it a bit. There were widespread rumours that the party National Executive Committee would impose an all-left shortlist. Two things seem to have prevented that...

On 4 May, there were two announcements significant to Haringey Labour. One was that we won 42 seats in the council elections, with the Lib Dems winning 15. The other that the former Leader of Haringey Council, Claire Kober, had found a job in a major property development company, Pinnacle. Pinnacle was one of the three companies that had bid for the now permanently shelved Haringey Development Vehicle, a project which would have put an estimated £2 billion of public assets into a jointly owned public-private venture. Kober becoming an executive at a property development company is the kind of...

In the Guardian on 27 April, Beth Foster-Ogg writes that Labour needs “radical local councillors” who are “building socialism from below.” To counter swingeing cuts of up to 50% since 2010, they need to come up with “innovative, radical measures to tackle the fractures in British society.” She cites the examples of Salford and Preston as models for councillors. Momentum’s work, she says, is “all about ensuring that Labour councillors aren’t waiting for change to come on high...” We do need more left-wing councillors, who are held accountable by their constituents. Labour councils should try to...

The left which has flooded into Labour since Corbyn’s leadership campaign in 2015 now holds the balance of power within the Party. But what kind of left is this, and where is it going? In the last issue we reported ( bit.ly/2FwqstG ) on the 23 April AGM of Lewisham (south London) Momentum. An amalgam of groups and individuals behind a slate headed by Aaron Bastani from Novara Media (although Bastani did not show up on the night) sought to oust the old steering committee, and eventually left the meeting hall to run their own “AGM” in a pub’s public bar. The coalition organised “behind the...

The expulsion of Marc Wadsworth a longstanding anti-racist campaigner and journalist for bringing the Labour Party in disrepute is a serious mistake, setting any real fight against antisemitism backwards. The case highlights how far there is to go to reform Labour’s disciplinary procedures even while a left and pro-Corbyn majority is on the NEC. The charges against Wadsworth stem from the launch of the Chakrabarti Report where he accused a Daily Telegraph journalist Kate McCann of “working hand in hand” with Labour MP Ruth Smeeth. Wadsworth had been leafletting outside and a copy of the...

“I saw the article about the 21 March Lewisham Momentum on trans rights posted on the ‘Check their minutes’ website. It is a distortion of what the meeting was, and much of it is total invention. “I was the only platform speaker at the meeting, as Natacha Kennedy pulled out that day due to childcare issues. She sent a note to the meeting. I am chair of the TUC’s LGBT Committee and was invited to speak in that capacity. I was explicitly invited to speak from a pro-trans rights and socialist feminist point of view and about the importance of the labour movement and left fighting for trans rights...

On Monday 23 April the Momentum group in Lewisham (south London) held its Annual General Meeting to elect a new set of officers and plan future work. Up to 160 people turned up. Around 30 people were not able to get into the venue as it was full to capacity, and therefore were excluded from the discussions. Maybe 60-70 had no previous record of local activity in Momentum or the Labour Party, and/or had been mobilised simply to vote out members of the existing steering group who were standing again for different roles, and specifically members of the AWL, which for months now has been the...