Will Forward Momentum continue?

Submitted by AWL on 17 June, 2020 - 2:50 Author: Mohan Sen
Forward Momentum

Early on in the creation of Momentum reform group Forward Momentum, its organisers made lot of it being a “time-limited campaign” that would dissolve when the Momentum NCG election was over. We have heard less of that recently, and the rumour is that the key people want the organisation to continue afterwards.

Forward Momentum continuing seems to us a double-edged sword.

On one hand, having a framework to hold newly elected FM-backed NCG members to account would be a good thing, and it’s hard to see any organisation providing a comparable potential framework. After the election, when time is no longer such an urgent fact, it would be harder for the FM organisers to maintain the political ambiguity and lack of democracy in the organisation.

On the other hand, Forward Momentum contains people with opposing political viewpoints on a wide range of issues, including about the fundamental purpose of Momentum and what needs changing about it.

There is a risk that an ongoing organisation would work against the better, more democratic, more class struggle-oriented and more radical people organising on the basis of their politics, and seek to bind them the lowest-common-denominator of the Forward Momentum coalition.

Whatever happens we need urgent discussion about our demands for transforming Momentum, reviving the Labour left and pushing forward the class struggle – and a single consensual, not-properly-pluralist “Forward Momentum position” will not be a good thing.

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