MOMENTUM’S DECEMBER National Committee voted to hold a delegate-based conference in February 2017, and to launch campaigns in defence of migrants’ rights and against the expulsions and suspensions of Jeremy Corbyn supporters in the Labour Party. The Steering Committee and office staff remain unchanged.
With the dark clouds of Brexit looming, and the transformation of Labour into a genuinely democratic anti-austerity and internationalist party still incomplete, these modest objectives give Momentum members a chance to confront the big questions facing our movement.
There are good grounds for optimism. Momentum is growing, new branches are being established, people from all backgrounds are growing in confidence, as they take on new roles and responsibilities.
Yet in the comment pages of the Guardian, in the studios of the BBC and in the swamp of the blogosphere, a crisis supposedly threatens the very existence of the organisation.
Articles by Laura Murray and Owen Jones, ably assisted by an appearance on the Daily Politics show from Paul Mason, allege that there is a conspiracy by Trotskyist “saboteurs” to “take over” Momentum.
While the Steering Committee’s undemocratic behaviour and misuse of office resources to push their own political agenda is well documented, no evidence is offered for the claim that Trotskyists have subverted Momentum’s democratic processes.
Like all third-rate conspiracies, it is nothing more than an amalgamation of stale prejudices and innuendo, garnished with an unpleasant relish of sub-Stalinist abuse. When Tom Watson tried to smear the Corbyn movement by claiming Trotskyists were “twisting arms”, he was rightly laughed out of the room – including by Momentum national chair Jon Lansman.
The claim that this is a dispute between old and young is a patronising fiction that merits no further consideration. Nor is this dispute simply about whether one method of internal democracy is preferable to another.
It is sad that previously respected figures like Jones and Mason have used their standing in the movement to lend a veneer of credibility to a malicious and unprincipled witch-hunt that threatens the future of a movement painstakingly built up over the course of two summers. But it is not surprising given the political gulf opening up between them and the majority of Labour Party members over Brexit, Trident and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership itself.
Strategy
The real division in Momentum is over the most effective strategy to defend Corbyn’s leadership and turn the Labour Party into an effective tool for the working class to stop austerity and fight for a genuinely socialist alternative.
The wing around Jon Lansman, supported (from the outside) by Owen Jones and (from the inside) Paul Mason, wants Momentum to be an auxiliary of Corbyn supporters who can be mobilised to vote in elections or sign petitions according to a strategy developed by the Leader’s Office.
This means that actions, that disrupt the promises made by Corbyn and McDonnell, or which would force them to choose between the members and the Parliamentary Labour Party, are off-limits. That’s why Lansman unilaterally declared that Momentum does not support mandatory reselection or setting “no-cuts” council budgets, and endorsed witch-finder general Deputy Leader Tom Watson immediately after Corbyn’s re-election.
The first problem with this approach is that it turns grassroots members of Labour and Momentum into a passive stage army, while influential leaders and advisors make the big decisions. Far from being a “new kind of politics”, it is a mirror of the bureaucratic leadership prevalent across the labour movement.
But the more serious problem is that Jeremy Corbyn is a prisoner of the PLP. His room for manoeuvre and the pace of democratic reform and policy change are effectively dictated by the right wing of the PLP and their allies in the Party’s bureaucracy, National Policy Forum and National Executive Committee. Lansman’s approach ties Momentum’s hands and effectively makes it a voluntary prisoner of the right.
The best way to defend Corbyn is to go on the offensive. If we accept the PLP dictating the price of unity, we will soon find ourselves in a party led by Corbyn, espousing the politics of Bomber Benn and Stephen Kinnock. The pressure from both left and right of the party for Corbyn and Diane Abbott to abandon their principled defence of free movement shows how real this danger is.
What’s at stake
Freedom of movement is not a shibboleth or a distraction that should be casually discarded. If the Labour right succeed in forcing Corbyn to abandon this principle without a fight, Labour’s new membership could become demoralised and Corbyn’s leadership fatally undermined.
That is why the attempt by John McDonnell, Paul Mason, and Jon Lansman to pre-emptively capitulate to the right by dressing up support for Brexit in “socialist” clothes demonstrates political cowardice and strategic ineptness in equal measure.
Jon Lansman, without consulting the organisation, abused his privileged access to Momentum’s staff and resources to launch the so-called Take Back Control campaign in coordination with John McDonnell.
Just days later, Momentum’s national committee voted to “campaign for Labour to resist the growing pressure to cave in on freedom of movement and migrants’ rights” and to “campaign to defend and extend freedom of movement in the context of the Brexit negotiations, including the establishment of a Labour movement-based campaign for free movement”.
Clearly these two approaches, Lansman’s and the NC’s, are fundamentally incompatible.
The first demonstrates the method of those with contempt for the members, who believe the only way Momentum can be effective is if it simply carries out the strategy developed by its leaders. The second expresses the method of an organisation where policy and strategy is generated from the bottom up, but also one whose members remain committed to defending the fundamental principles of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign.
Paul Mason, Owen Jones, Jon Lansman and John McDonnell, all want to capitulate in one way or another to the pressure from the Labour right over immigration and “national security”. Whether they want to do this from electoral calculation, political expediency or personal conviction is immaterial. If we go down this road, it will end in disaster for the Corbyn movement, the Labour Party and the working class.
We need to keep sight of what our goal is. A Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn – yes. A Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn – yes. But not at the price of abandoning the principles and socialist policies that Jeremy gave voice to during his leadership campaigns.
When the right wing wanted to isolate Corbyn, split his supporters, and destroy the movement they whipped up a hysterical campaign against Trotskyists. Those on the left, who now want Corbyn to capitulate, and don’t want Momentum to be an obstacle to their manoeuvres, are now themselves whipping up a campaign against Trotskyists.
Not because Trotskyists are the only people capable of opposing them – far from it. But because they are preparing to betray fundamental principles of the Corbyn revolution and want Trotskyists to take the blame for the inevitable divisions their betrayals will provoke.
That is what this dispute is really about.
So whether you prefer delegates or plebiscites, whether you favour a social movement or the labour movement, whether you are a Trotskyist or not, if you want to defend Corbyn’s leadership, you need to support motions to Momentum’s conference that defy this witch-hunt and defend the principle of freedom of movement.
