Momentum

Momentum Grassroots: Time to up the fight

William Sarsfield spoke to Labour Party Marxist supporter Tina Werkmann, who was elected to the Grassroots Momentum steering committee

Was there a good turn-out?

There were about 200 people present, including Sahaya James and Rida Vaquas, both newly elected onto the Momentum’s official national coordinating group (NCG), which – and what a coincidence! – met for its first gathering on the same day in Birmingham. The two comrades chose the Grassroots event instead, which is not necessarily the choice I would have made. But they both got elected onto the new Grassroots steering committee too (Rida first resigned and then withdrew her resignation again). In any case, I’m sure they will have some interesting discussions with Jon Lansman, who, I hear, has just been ‘elected’ as chair of the Momentum NCG.

The Grassroots event was bigger than I had expected. Especially as the conference arrangements committee had the remit of organising a delegate conference. There were, in fact, 70 or so official delegates from branches. Members in Momentum branches with pro-Lansman majorities were supposed to participate as observers with speaking, but no voting, rights. As a member of Sheffield Momentum, one of the many branches that is split 50:50 over the coup, I thought that was a really poor decision. As it was, there were no official delegates from Sheffield, York, Manchester, Leeds – and those are just the big branches I know of. Unfortunately, the organisers had simply ignored our various calls before conference to allow such minorities to fully participate.

However, when we arrived at conference, it actually transpired that there was a big difference on the organising committee about this issue. The final meeting of the subsequently abolished Momentum national committee, which met on January 28 in London, had decided to entrust the running of the March 11 event to the pro-democracy members of the (also abolished) steering committee and conference arrangements committee. But, although the two groups continued to meet, it seems they did not really work together. I was told that the remaining members of the SC decided that every Momentum member should be able to attend and vote at conference – but the CAC overturned this at its own meeting the day after.

So there are political differences between the two groups?

Definitely. This is reflected in Grassroots Momentum as a whole: Those left on the old steering committee included Alliance for Workers’ Liberty supporters Michael Chessum and Jill Mountford (plus Fire Brigades Union leader Matt Wrack and Jackie Walker); the CAC is made up of Jackie Walker, Alec Price and Delia Mattis (Josie Runswick resigned early on and was replaced by Lee Griffiths). The CAC took control, chaired the whole day and managed to almost totally sideline the AWL.

Jackie Walker and her supporters hate the AWL with a passion, of course.

And I totally understand why. The ugly truth is that AWLers have actively participated in the ‘anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt against her. They supported Jon Lansman in sacking her as Momentum vice-chair in September 2016. In effect, this was a dry run for the next coup – the ‘big one’ on January 10 – when Lansman crushed any democracy in the organisation and simply imposed a new, crassly undemocratic constitution.

It was clear at the GM conference that the AWL has really made a lot of enemies in all of this – just to add to those of us who already opposed their pro-Zionist social-imperialism. There was a great deal of hostility against them on display – and it only increased during the day. I must confess, I almost felt a bit sorry for them. Almost …

Because the few proposals on display were presented so out of context and in a truncated manner, AWL members tried to make various ‘points of order’ throughout the day. Some were more useful than others; some were presented more coherently than others. The AWL’s Rosie Woods, who had taken up a position near the stage, was greeted, after she’d been on her feet a few times, with a rather sectarian chorus of “Sit down, sit down” (led by Gerry Downing, of all people – he’s been on the receiving end of people’s displeasure a few times, so probably should know better). But to claim that they “disrupted” the conference, as some comrades have since done on Facebook, is seriously misleading and excuses the CAC’s role in the often disorganised and muddled way conference was planned and conducted.

Actually, it reminds me of the way Jon Lansman, Owen Jones and Paul Mason have tried to blame ‘the Trots’ (ie, the left) for the failures of Momentum to take off. Not a healthy response …

How was it that everyone present got the right to vote and not just the minority of branch delegates?

It was actually me who suggested that everybody present should be allowed to vote and I told conference of how in Sheffield we have been unable to choose delegates, as the pro-Lansman right is pretty strong. I was surprised that the chair simply put it to conference without any discussion and delegates supported the proposal by 43 votes to 24.

Afterwards, other LPM comrades disagreed with me for making this point of order. In general, I am very much in favour of delegate decision-making and I agree with my comrades that there was a democratic problem, in that some people at the conference represented an organised branch, while others simply showed up as individuals.

On the other hand, the planning of this conference was appalling. A lot of people from a lot of branches were not represented. So I think it was fair to challenge the voting criterion. To be honest, I don’t think it made much difference to the outcome – delegates and observers seemed to have been of a similar political composition.

Was this the only problem with the conference?

Hardly. For a start, contributions from the floor were limited to two minutes, which is simply ridiculous. At the election hustings at the end, we got 30 seconds each. Nobody can make any coherent political point in that amount of time. But unfortunately we did waste almost the entire morning putting amendments to a ‘motherhood and apple pie’ statement on what GM should be ‘campaigning’ on. In its report of conference, Socialist Appeal rather weirdly calls this GM’s “constitution”. It clearly is nothing of the sort.

I spoke against compiling a long list of statements on worthy causes and argued that GM should not replicate campaigns that the Labour Party itself can organise far more effectively. I said that we should focus on the fight to transform and democratise Labour. A fair number of speakers supported the proposal and it is now part of a very long document.

I think it was Tony Greenstein who suggested that we also speak out against the fake anti-Semitism witch-hunt in the Labour Party and Momentum, and not just against “the factionally motivated and unjust suspensions/expulsions/exclusions”, as was the previous formulation. Leading AWLer Sacha Ismail spoke – in vain – against this amendment. But then he would, wouldn’t he? His flimsy arguments that it would “complicate” things and “make a mess” of conference were rejected by the overwhelming majority in the room, and the amendment was passed.

Tell us about the discussion over choosing a new leadership. It didn’t go to plan for the organisers, did it?

Not at all. I have to say though that this whole discussion was far more fractious than it had to be. For some reason, the chair ruled that no amendments would be allowed and, even when it became clear that many people favoured a combination of option 2 and 3 – for example, when it comes to calling regular meetings of GM braches and members – she was unwilling to amend either option.

The three proposals all fit comfortably on an A4 sheet, which is never a good sign. But they had to be moved in two minutes and could therefore not be explained properly. No context was given and, crucially, neither option featured any method on how to change things: for example, how to get rid of anybody elected onto any leadership position.

It was clear that the CAC had expected option 2 to win. I have no doubt that they had already made decisions on dividing up positions on the new leadership. But it was not to be … They were very clearly gobsmacked with the vote and didn’t know how to proceed. A woman in the audience quite rightly interjected: “Obviously, you didn’t expect this result. But conference has made it – now get on with implementing it.” Around 45 people put themselves forward as candidates and everybody got 30 seconds to whiz through an election pitch. That took up almost all the remaining time.

What option did you go for?

I supported option 3, as it is the most flexible and simple. There seemed to me two serious problems with option 2: firstly, it would have meant that members in groups with pro-constitution majorities like my own would have to split from Momentum in order to get fully involved and “affiliate” to GM. Also, Jon Lansman would have had a very easy time simply dissolving all those Momentum groups who officially affiliate to Grassroots Momentum. Option 2 was the splitters’ option.

Secondly, there was no proposal on how we could ever replace the ‘coordinating group’ directly put in power by conference. It just smacked too much of a version of a Lansman-style stitch-up to many people in the room.

So a good conference? Bad? Indifferent?

I didn’t get the impression that the day inspired many with great confidence that GM is now on the verge of impressive forward steps. But clearly there is an urgent need to properly organise the left in Momentum and the Labour Party. I think the jury is still out on whether GM can play an effective role within that struggle. Half of the new steering committee is made up of people from organised groups: there are six supporters of the AWL, two from the LRC and one from Workers Power.

I hope the hostility between those people does not stop GM from organising members effectively and democratically. For instance, quite a few people (among them AWL members) are now bemoaning the fact that Gerry Downing was allowed to attend conference and stand for the steering committee.

Others don’t want the AWL involved – something I have sympathy for, but would not pursue at this point. Also, to fight Lansman’s witch-hunt with more witch-hunts seems, well, spectacularly dumb in my view. Yes, there should be no relenting in criticising the AWL’s pro-imperialism and pro-Zionism – let’s make it as uncomfortable as possible for them. But I would argue against throwing them out of GM or keeping them off leading committees – the AWL should be fought in GM with politics, not crude, bureaucratic stitch-ups.

What is the key lesson you take away from all of this?

I think we should make sure that GM does not try to recreate Momentum on a smaller, much less effective scale. In my view, Grassroots Momentum can, however, act as a leftwing pressure group within the official body.

We need to keep this in mind when it comes to Momentum’s March 25 conference. I’m hoping that the new GM steering committee will agree with what I’ll be pushing for – that is, to make an organised intervention. We must speak to these comrades and make the case that we need to seriously up the fight against the Parliamentary Labour Party right wing, to thoroughly democratise the party from top to bottom and to win an overwhelming majority for genuine working class politics.

Momentum

Momentum Grassroots conference: Against Jon Lansman, for what?


On March 11, Grassroots Momentum met at Conway Hall in central London. Simon Wells and Carla Roberts report

Over 200 Momentum members attended the first gathering of the newly established Momentum Grassroots network. It could have easily been much bigger, had it not been built as a ‘delegate’ event – a decision which was overturned at the beginning of the meeting by a clear majority of the branch delegates (see interview opposite).

The organised left was there, of course: there were about two dozen members and supporters of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty/The Clarion and a handful of supporters each of Workers Power (Red Flag), Socialist Appeal and Labour Party Marxists. The Labour Representation Committee and Nick Wrack’s Labour Party Socialist Network had a few members present, though neither seemed to make a coordinated intervention.

It is, of course, long overdue for the left within the Labour movement to start to get organised. But, on the day, GM’s main political problem became more and more evident: it has been set up as a reaction to Jon Lansman’s January 10 coup, when he simply abolished all elected Momentum bodies and imposed a bureaucratic constitution. All GM supporters are united in their opposition to this highly undemocratic manoeuvre. However, when it comes to the way forward, there were – at least – three different viewpoints present on March 11:

  • Some want a clean split from Momentum – the sooner, the better. There are, naturally, differences over with whom to split, to form what exactly and on what political basis.
  • Some want to continue to work in Momentum for now, while at the same time almost replicating the official body – with parallel structures and similar political limitations, but on a lower level: similar campaigns, similar leadership elections, etc.
  • Some – and LPM belongs to this third group – agree that we should continue to work within Momentum for the time being, but with a clear understanding of its limited shelf life, openly criticising its exceedingly pinched political outlook and subordination to the politics of Jeremy Corbyn’s 10 pledges.

How not to run a conference

Unfortunately, the GM conference made no attempt to clarify where GM as a whole might stand in relation to those three main options. In fact, we did not get a chance to discuss anything much at all, let alone serious politics.

To put it mildly, the organisation of the event was a shambles – reflecting, of course, the ideological and political poverty of much of the left. As is now common at such leftwing gatherings, we were presented with a stuffed agenda, which included speeches from strikers – but we had no time for proper, meaningful discussion or decision-making. Of course, we support the Picturehouse workers struggle for a living wage and are with the teaching assistants in Derby in their strike against the Labour council. But should the founding conference of GM really have devoted so much time to hearing their representatives, when contributions from the floor were limited to a measly two minutes?

An exception was made for Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigades Union, who was allowed six minutes, but this was not enough to outline a set of serious proposals. Comrade Wrack had personally sponsored the conference with a “large contribution” – since his election as general secretary of the FBU, he has been “setting aside a portion of my wages to help fund the labour movement”.

It would have helped if we had started the day with this comrade’s contribution, but it was not until just before lunch that he spoke. He explained that the FBU “continues to keep an open mind” about Momentum and Grassroots Momentum, but had so far declined the offer to take up a seat on Lansman’s national coordinating group. He spoke about the need to democratise Labour, fight for the selection of socialist MPs and for socialist policies – and said that in fact “we are making almost no progress in any of these areas”. He quite correctly stated that “the right is running rings around the left at conference” and “expulsions for political reasons are not being challenged”. He was also right to say that “Corbyn will lose, unless he faces these challenges head on”.

The biggest problem was the agenda, which really was the wrong way round. We were to discuss campaigns first (see interview), then democratising the Labour movement, and only then were we supposed to have a discussion on “the way forward for GM”, including how to elect some kind of a leadership. This last item was supposed to last just over an hour and a half. But clearly there were a lot of disagreements in the hall.

What kind of leadership?

LPM supporter John Bridge successfully challenged the agenda and after lunch we went on to discuss the future of GM. This challenge turned out to be quite crucial, as that discussion went on for the rest of the day. Clearly, conference should have started with it. And maybe then we would have had time to debate this question politically, rather than just decide on a method of electing a new leadership.

On this issue, we were presented with three options, which were put together by the former chair of the (now abolished) conference arrangements committee, Alec Price – himself a supporter of option 2 (he also started chairing the session, but after a challenge from the floor sat down again).

  • Option 1 was not very serious: keep things as they are, with the remaining members of Momentum’s official national council (also abolished), who were elected many months ago, continuing to meet. Only one or two people voted for this.
  • Option 2 was favoured by the ex-CAC members and was given by far the most time: local groups would affiliate to GM and send two representatives each to a leadership meeting every three months. Plus, conference was to directly elect a ‘coordinating group’ of six named positions. These two bodies would work together in perfect harmony, with the national meeting of branch delegates supposedly being the superior committee. But this is obvious nonsense. In practice the six directly elected officers would be unaccountable little Bonapartes – an all too common practice of the left and fervently opposed by LPM. Much to the consternation of the top table, after a couple of recounts, option 2 was defeated with 83 for and 89 against. Those who had already divvied up the six jobs between themselves were visibly stunned. For a good five minutes they literally did not know what to do.
  • Option 3 was textually the briefest and allowed for “15-20 people” elected at conference to form a “steering committee” that “can elect an executive if they wish”. This was successfully carried with 88 for and 68 against.

In general, option 2 was supported by comrades who want a politically narrower leadership (specifically in this case excluding the AWL/The Clarion) – about half the conference. As we had no proper discussion on this issue, it was projected onto the 30-second (!) hustings contributions by the 40-plus candidates who put themselves forward for the 20 national committee places. Without any consultation, let alone a vote, the chair announced that a least half the committee had to be female (ie, the quota system loved by liberal bureaucracies everywhere). And it is no surprise, especially given the numbers they had mobilised, that the AWL candidates did well. They make up around a quarter of the committee (that despite the fact that in the morning session they badly lost out when they spoke against the proposal to include in GM’s basic platform opposition to the bogus ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt).

The left within Momentum is, though, surely split on the most crucial question before us: what it is we hope to achieve in the Labour Party.

Is it about following the masses into Labour and building this or that social movement? Is it about splitting off a leftwing minority to form the core of a future revolutionary ‘party’ – ie, one of the sects writ large? Is it about working for a Labour government and hoping that Jeremy Corbyn manages to hang on till 2020? Is it about fighting for a left-reformist Labour government that will carry out a limited range of progressive measures within the confines of the existing monarchical constitution?

Or, on the contrary, is it about transforming the Labour Party into a permanent united front of the entire organised working class, a party programmatically committed to republican democracy and a new, socialist, clause four? If it is the latter – which is certainly the case with LPM – then this means recognising that taking such a course will ensure that Labour remains a party of extreme opposition for many years to come. We prefer that to forming a government that has no chance of carrying out the full programme of Marxism. Hence we envisage the taking of power not just in Britain in isolation, but as part of a worldwide movement of working class self-liberation that has Europe as its decisive point of departure.

There is clearly no real political coherence among the comrades involved in GM at this stage. This is something we shall seek to rectify through a process of debate, discussion and involvement in what should be our common struggle to influence Momentum’s 22,000 members. This means that, in our view, GM should as a matter of tactic, not principle, remain a part of Momentum – just so long as we can make our voice heard in it and there are people to listen.

That does not mean we politically subordinate ourselves to Jon Lansman or, for that matter, Jeremy Corbyn. Of course not. But, if we arm ourselves with principled politics, we will have the opportunity, in however limited a way, to win many thousands to the cause of socialism. For example, LPM secretary Stan Keable stood in the recent Momentum elections to the national coordinating group for the South East constituency. He won a respectable 458 votes on a Marxist platform, which included a strongly-worded condemnation of the Lansman coup, naturally. Where is the downside of that, exactly?

Steering committee

The following were elected:

Matt Wrack,137
Sahaya James, 95
Tracy McGuire, 93
Jackie Walker, 93
Nick Wrack, 89
Simon Hannah, 82
Delia Mattis, 82
Kevin McKenna, 80
Jill Mountford, 75
Graham Bash, 71
Rosie Woods, 71
Rida Vaquas, 69
Lee Griffiths, 69
Alec Price, 67
Pete Radcliff, 64
Ed Whitby, 63
Tina Werkmann, 61
Jan Pollock, 58
Richard Gerrard, 56
Joan Twelves, 53

Further results here:

 

Democracy and the Labour Party, Labour structures and programme, Momentum

Don’t be a fan club

William Sarsfield of Labour Party Marxists calls for a serious fight to transform Labour

The dramatic events in Momentum over the past few months have revealed the crassly undemocratic ethos that informs the approach of Jon Lansman – effectively the ‘owner’ of the organisation. Predictably, the right’s victory in the Februaryopinion poll-turned-plebiscite, used to justify the imposition of a bureaucratic constitution, has prompted a wave of demoralisation, falling numbers at Momentum meetings and a growing atmosphere of denunciations and restrictions on debate directed against “the enemy”, as the Momentum left is now being dubbed by some – with the blessing of the national centre, it seems.

This anti-democratic farce has been well documented in the pages of this paper, plus in the bulletins and general commentary of Labour Party Marxists. The question now is: what does the left do about this? How do we fight back?

The omens do not look good, if we are to judge from the agenda and discussion papers produced for the dissident gathering of the Momentum left in London on March 11 – convened as the “Momentum Grassroots networking conference”. The comrades organising this national meeting appear utterly clueless about what to do next in relation to Momentum and – like the ‘official’ Momentum – the work that needs to be undertaken in the Labour Party itself. So the organisers (the previous conference arrangements committee, plus the old steering committee majority before both committees were abolished by Lansman) have issued a document “as a starting point” for the discussion on what the Grassroots of Momentum is and what it should fight for.

Sensibly, it recognises it would be wrong to “split from Momentum”, but equally it would be a mistake to “waste unnecessary energy fighting a battle that can’t be won”, given the Lansman clique’s stranglehold over the apparatus and the backing he enjoys from the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott. There is also a nod in the direction of the tasks of “democratising and transforming the labour movement” and “fighting … unjust suspensions/expulsions/exclusions” from the Labour Party.

However, the meat of the campaigning work that this draft sets out for Grassroots is the standard left fare of:

  •  Fighting austerity.
  •  Defending the NHS – “including supporting national demos” and “Labour days of action, local campaigns and industrial action by health unions to smash the pay cap”.
  •  “Defending migrants’ rights”.
  •  Supporting “workers in struggle”, joining picket lines, etc.
  •  Supporting the popularisation of Corbyn’s “10 pledges”.
  •  Mass council house building and renovation.

In other words, precisely the sort of activities that the local units of the Labour Party itself should be (and often are) involved in. What exactly would be the point of the small Grassroots campaign if it tried to substitute itself for the campaigning life of a mass party?

Ironically, the same sort of surrogate impulse hangs around the Lansman organisation. After all, the Grassroots founding document cited above makes clear that the campaigning work it commits to encompasses “all previous campaigns” agreed to by the official organisation, including the ones listed above.

In this context, there is an interesting Guardian article by Momentum/‘The World Transformed’ organiser Deborah Hermanns that notes that Momentum branches around the country have been “making an effort to build community” in areas devastated by cuts. She cites film screenings in “halls and community centres”, donating the proceeds to local food banks and homeless shelters, etc. Far more needs doing, she concedes – “social spaces, cinema clubs, food banks and sports centres … providing the space and security people need to build their own, unique political and cultural identities”.

But it is on a “limited scale” due to the “shoestring” budgets local Momentum organisations are able to deploy. The real point is the Labour Party itself, she correctly writes:

Corbyn’s Labour, with thousands of branches across the country, millions of pounds in its coffers and a membership of more than half a million, could flood key areas with resources, ideas and activists to support and get projects going that actually help out the community.1)The Guardian March 7

Quite right, and a vision this paper has championed for some time. But, for that to happen, Labour itself must be radically transformed – the parliamentary party subordinated to the mandate of the membership as part of a democratic revolution within Labour; the pro-capitalist right wing excluded; bans and proscriptions on working class political organisations overturned, etc. In short Labour must be transformed into a mass movement for socialism that unites the trade unions, co-ops, leftwing societies, socialist and communist groups and parties.

This is the key, defining task that Grassroots comrades should commit to. An uncritical ‘support Jez’ stance is worse than useless, because Corbyn’s game plan is useless. Unsettlingly, the right honourable Lord Daniel Finkelstein, Tory peer and associate editor of The Times, appears to have a more realistic grasp of what is required than Grassroots, the official Lansman organisation or the Labour leadership team itself:

His only hope must be as a subversive challenger, relentlessly organising to take over the party and talking about his efforts to do so. He should come out with huge, earth-shaking, radical leftwing policies and not care that Yvette Cooper and I both think that they are bonkers … He should organise to deselect critics and win selection contests for his people.2)The Times February 28

This internal battle for the heart and soul of the Labour Party is the key link to grasp in this period. As Corbyn supporter Matthew Turner notes in a March 6 posting on TheIndependent website, “an authoritative and relentless streak” needs to be developed and “the democratic right of CLPs to reselect and deselect their parliamentary candidates” is crucial “to ensure that young, up-and-coming, ‘fire in the belly’ leftwingers replace those who are actively seeking to undermine the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.”

The shared weakness of the Turner and Finkelstein commentaries is that both make this change reliant on a change of heart on the part of Corbyn himself as an individual politician. In fact, the real starting point for the left of the party is to organise on the basis of a bold, principled and strategically clear perspective … and to refashion the Labour Party from top to bottom on that basis. That is what Momentum Grassroots needs to discuss and vote on.

References

References
↑1 The Guardian March 7
↑2 The Times February 28
Momentum

Momentum elections: Putting the case for real socialism

The recent elections in Momentum allowed us to test our strength and present our arguments, writes Stan Keable

At a stroke Jon Lansman’s January 10 coup scuppered any remaining hope in Momentum’s fragile, emerging democracy. This after an email vote by six members of a defunct, out-of-time steering committee, without discussion or the opportunity of amendment. He imposed instead a nightmare of a constitution, which can only be rejected by members, against the will of the national coordinating group (NCG), if 30% of the entire membership vote to reject it (rule 9.5(ii)). As for the NCG itself, only 12 of its 28 seats are elected by the membership.

The coup was ‘legitimised’ by the results – announced the same day – of a ‘survey’ of members, in which 80.6% expressed a preference for decision-making by ‘one member, one vote’. Clicks were also 72.29% in favour of the well-crafted proposition that “all members should have a say in electing their representatives”. With a 40.35% turnout for the survey, that meant 32.5% and 29.2% respectively of the membership answered the ‘right way’ for what were loaded, but seemingly innocuous, questions. However, this was treated by Lansman as a green light to impose his hugely complex constitution without further consultation. National committee abolished, regional committees abolished, conference arrangement committee abolished, left groups and individuals blocked – job done.

What the coup has achieved is not the end of ‘factionalism’, but the entrenchment of Lansman’s dominant faction. Democracy has been snuffed out, the danger of the left exerting an influence by winning delegates averted and Momentum set on a path that will probably end in extinction. In place of what might have been a weapon in the hands of the Labour left, what now remains is little more than a Jeremy Corbyn fan club.

And, of course, Momentum’s database, money and the hiring and firing of staff remain safely in private hands. The main task of Momentum and the left should be democratising and transforming Labour into a party of the working class for socialism – but fear overcame hope. A democratic Momentum was bound to be seen as a threat by the Labour right. A bureaucratic Momentum is a threat to no-one.

Nevertheless Momentum’s pinched NCG elections enable us to measure the strength of the various political tendencies and organised factions. Participating did not legitimise the imposed constitution, as some ‘Don’t stand, don’t vote’ oppositionists claimed, any more than participating in parliamentary elections legitimises the United Kingdom’s constitutional monarchy – with its queen, lords, established church and standing army. For Marxists, participation in elections (with exceptions) is obligatory, for propaganda purposes. We should not miss the opportunity to present our political programme for the liberation of the working class from wage-slavery, and for the ending of all oppressions, through the achievement of world socialism.
National Coordinating Group

As I write, on February 22, Momentum’s website, intriguingly, still displays the following message: “The Momentum national coordinating group elections closed on Friday February 17 at 12 noon. Results will be announced soon.”1)https://vote.peoplesmomentum.com Why the delay? Surely this cannot be an oversight on the part of Team Momentum. What spin, one wonders, is being cooked up behind the scenes?

Perhaps there is embarrassment, perhaps a difficulty in presenting a partial victory (despite all the advantages of controlling Momentum’s money, database and paid staff) for the ruling Jon Lansman faction, in a mere 33.75% turnout, as an overwhelming endorsement of his January 10 coup, constitution and digital pseudo-democracy.

The results were announced privately, however, in a Momentum HQ email to candidates on the evening the ballot closed. “Temporary Momentum organiser” Beth Foster-Ogg wrote to me that “unfortunately you were not successful in this election”. However, I received a respectable 458 votes on an explicitly Marxist platform.2)https://vote.peoplesmomentum.com/candidates/se She gave a link to the full results.

Surely in need of a truth drug, Beth added that “A huge 34% of Momentum members voted in the election.” But 34% is not “huge”, and one should refrain from writing such guff, even if they pay you. The word “huge” was deleted from Beth’s next email, announcing the results to all members, sent less than an hour later. But also missing is any apology for the dishonest spin, and any acknowledgement or assessment of the “huge” 66% who did not vote – who were not inspired to get involved by the much vaunted inclusivity of the so-called “new politics” of online voting. After all, in terms of Lansman’s imposed Omov constitution, a 34% turnout, and the result itself, are both disappointing.

The rightwing (in Momentum terms) Lansman faction was undoubtedly better prepared and better organised than the anti-coup, anti-constitution left. On February 2, Lansman’s Left Futures blog announced its four-person slates for each of the three regional divisions. The opposition candidates, on the other hand, with varying degrees of criticism of the imposed constitution and the high-handed way it was imposed, divided their votes amongst 30 competing candidates, reflecting the political disunity of the left, as well as its disorganisation.

Nevertheless, despite their advantages, the Lansmanites were unable to sweep the board, losing three of the 12 seats to their critics. These defeats were limited because of the ‘first past the post’ system prescribed by the new, illegitimate constitution (illegitimate because it has never been put to a vote). Labour Party democracy is already in advance of Momentum’s in this respect, requiring transferable votes in its internal elections.

The ballot results circulated show that Momentum membership (“total eligible voters”) had reached 22,398 before the ballot opened, of whom only 7,559 voted. Unfortunately, the number of voters in each region is not given – perhaps that will appear on the website one day soon. The votes for each candidate is stated and, adding them up, we find the total votes cast is 29,000, of which only 12,429 – well under half – went to the Lansmanite slates. A total of 16,571 votes were cast for non-Lansmanite candidates, most of whom were variously critical of the coup and constitution. Under a transferable vote system, the outcome would have been much worse for Lansman. Truly, as socialist candidate Andrew Thompson rightly blogged, “the emperor has no clothes”.

In one of the three regions, the North and Scotland, oppositionists failed to present an identifiable slate. Out of 11 candidates, all four of the Lansmanites were elected, with a total of 4,260 votes, the other seven gaining 4,495. Two were backed by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty: Camila Bassi (834) and Alan Runswick (705).

In the Midlands, Wales, East and West region there was a fudged oppositionist slate. Out of 18 candidates, the four Lansmanites gained only 3,519 votes, against a total of 6,334 votes for non-Lansmanite candidates. Three of the oppositionists tried to form a bloc with Andy Thompson (413 votes), but Andy asked members to vote for Rida Vaquas. Andy’s address had the best politics – “working class socialist principles”, “struggle for a socialist transformation of society”, “delegate democracy” and a sovereign national conference.

Perhaps that peculiar combination of factors partly explains why AWL-backed candidate Rida Vaquas topped the poll with 973 votes, knocking out Lansmanite candidate Sam Poulson (765). Rida’s forthright election address sharply criticised Lansman’s coup, promising to “fight for Momentum to be led by the grassroots membership and not by a clique at the top with no accountability whatsoever”. Momentum’s structures, she said, must be decided by members, “not by six people in a room in an email vote in less than an hour.”

No AWL candidate mentions that toxic organisation by name, nor its pro-Zionist, social-imperialist politics, nor its feeding into the fake anti-Semitism smear campaign in the Labour Party, nor its betrayal of Jackie Walker when she was under concerted Zionist attack. No surprise. The Momentum left is generally divided 50-50 on the issue of Zionism and the anti-Semitism smear campaign.

Four of the Lansman critics in the South East region presented a well organised slate (not including me) campaigning under the title, “Democracy and Socialism, for a Grassroots Momentum”, and two of them got elected: Yannis Gourtsoyannis (1,350) came second only to Lansman’s top candidate, Christine Shawcroft (1,382), while AWL-backed Sahaya James (1,018) knocked out Lansmanite David Braniff-Herbert (1,031) despite his slightly higher vote, because two of the four regional seats must be held by women. Christine Shawcroft’s Lansmanite slate, with its fake “Building the Grassroots” title, gained a total of 4,650 votes.

While the oppositionist slate gained 3,557, the total oppositionist vote was 5,742, beating the Lansmanite vote, as in all three regions. A more democratic transferable vote system would have produced an all-round defeat for Lansman – but he would still own Momentum, and would no doubt have changed the rules yet again.

References

History, Labour structures and programme

‘Progressive alliance’ adds up to defeat

Bad opinion polls have encouraged retrogressive thinking, argues James Marshall

Dismissing the Jeremy Corbyn leadership as less important than the latest ephemeral street protest, or urging comrades to stay aloof from the battle raging in the Labour Party, is the worst kind of sectarianism. Unfortunately, we have seen that from too many on the left: eg, Socialist Party in England and Wales, Socialist Workers Party, the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and Left Unity.

On the other hand, adopting an uncritical approach to Corbyn, refusing to condemn the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ smear campaign, attempts to appease the Labour right, abandonment of one principle after another – that is the road to disaster; a road foisted on Momentum with Jon Lansman’s cynical, anti-democratic coup (with the active connivance of Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and Clive Lewis).

Frankly, the Labourite left has no viable strategy for socialism. Even the thought of it has become vanishingly small. Just like the Labourite right, the Labourite left is committed to a Labour government for the sake of a Labour government. ‘The worst Labour government is better than any Tory government’ runs their mutual slogan. In other words, managing capitalism, though it may entail vicious attacks on the working class, is preferable to resisting capitalism and organising the working class for the struggle for socialism.

On the contrary, as Kier Hardie famously said in 1910, we need Labour MPs, “not to keep governments in office or to turn them out, but to organise the working class into a great, independent political power to fight for the coming of socialism”.1)Independent Labour Party 1910 annual conference report, p59 That should be our motto; that should be our strategic objective. Hardie, note, was clearly influenced here by the likes of Karl Kautsky, August Bebel, Vladimir Lenin and the Second International majority. True, organising the working class into a political party committed to socialism, enlightening millions with the theory of Marxism, coordinating our actions internationally – means that the immediate prospect of a Labour government recedes. However, that is the only sure way to achieve working class rule and the global transition to communism.

Labour’s (eminently predictable) bad poll ratings under Corbyn’s leadership have catapulted disorientated leftwingers – eg, Paul Mason and Owen Jones – far to the right. Any kind of majority Labour government appears impossibly remote – especially with boundary changes, the continued UK Independence Party threat in the north of England, the near Scottish National Party monopoly in Scotland and the bulk of Labour MPs still in open conflict with Corbyn.

Polls can be wrong: eg, David Cameron’s May 2015 general election victory, the Brexit vote and Donald Trump. Nevertheless, the Tories are so far ahead, the margin is so wide, that, barring some unforeseen accident, we are surely heading for a Labour defeat of 1931 proportions. The most recent ICM poll for The Guardian shows the Tories extending their lead to 18 points (the Tories being on 44% and Labour on 26%).2)The Guardian February 20 2017

Corbyn’s lame response was to say that the Labour Party was “better” at getting its message across online and blaming the media for the poor ratings. As if the Labour Party can rely on the capitalist press, radio and TV. Obviously, Labour cannot get anywhere just through tweeting. It needs a full-spectrum alternative media.

Indeed Marxists – genuine Marxists, that is – are committed to a root-and-branch transformation of the Labour Party. Instead of the ‘next Labour government’, the priority must be a sovereign conference, a meaningful clause four, commitment to a programme of international socialism, automatic reselection of MPs, the subordination of MPs to the national executive committee, MPs on an average worker’s wage, the closure of the compliance unit, rooting CLPs in workplaces and communities, new trade union affiliates, ending the bans and transforming the Labour Party into a united front open to all socialist organisations.

It is not only the wretched Paul Mason and Owen Jones who have undergone a full-scale political collapse. Comrades in Socialist Resistance and the Labour Representation Committee are in effect advocating the slogan, ‘Any government is better than a Tory government’. Naturally, this is done under the banner of ending the ‘age of austerity’. Hence the siren call for “forming a government through a progressive alliance with other parties”: ie, a Labour-Green-SNP-Plaid Cymru alliance.3)Socialist Resistance October 15 2016 Writing in the Labour Representation Committee’s monthly journal, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, echoes this council of despair. He says we must “start the work” of building the “progressive alliance”.4)Labour Briefing November 2016 Some even want to give an invite to the Liberal Democrats. The LRC’s Peter Bowing too calls for a “progressive coalition” and in that spirit urges Labour to “lead the Liberal Democrats, Greens and SNP in opposing Brexit”.5)Labour Briefing February 2017

A clear case of political regression. A return to Millerandism, Menshevism or the popular fronts of ‘official communism’. And, be warned, in the oft quoted words of George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
Millerandism

In 1899 the French socialist, Alexandre Millerand, agreed to become a minister in Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau’s coalition government of ‘republican defence’ – this was at the height of the Dreyfus affair. Millerand took his cabinet seat alongside general Alexandre de Gallifet, the butcher of the 1871 Paris Commune. Inevitably, this provoked widespread indignation, both in France itself and internationally.

Yet the advance of the baying Catholic, royalist and military right was stopped and Millerand steered through a wide range of reforms, including the reduction in the maximum working day from 11 to 10 hours, the introduction of an eight-hour working day for postal employees, the prescribing of maximum hours and minimum wages for all work undertaken by public authorities, the establishment of arbitration tribunals and inspectors of labour.

Millerandism became the subject of heated debate at the congress of the Socialist International held in Paris over September 23-27 1900. Previously any participation in a coalition government with bourgeois parties had been regarded as a gross violation of elementary principle. Millerand was, of course, part of a growing trend, which included Peter Struve in Russia, Eduard Bernstein in Germany and Sidney Webb in Britain. This revisionist opportunism erupted into outright social chauvinism in August 1914.

In an attempt to smooth over divisions, Kautsky tabled a rotten, though successful, compromise motion. Class collaboration was roundly condemned … but there was a get-out clause: “Whether in a particular case, the political situation necessitates this dangerous experiment [of joining a coalition government with bourgeois parties – JM] is a question of tactics and not principle.”

Lenin sarcastically dismissed the resolution as being made from “caoutchouc” – that is to say, India rubber: it could be stretched in any direction. Hence, outrageously, Millerand could claim to be a good socialist, differing with other good socialists only in terms of tactical considerations.

Understandably then, Millerandism continued to be a source of fierce controversy. At the 1903 (Dresden) Congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Kautsky supported the resolution condemning revisionism and, implicitly, Millerandism. So, while in Paris Kautsky was “running with the hares”, at Dresden he was “again to the fore, now ‘barking with the hounds’” (Daniel De Leon, 1904).

With a minor amendment, the SDP’s Dresden resolution was agreed at the Socialist International’s 1904 congress in Amsterdam. It deserves the closest attention:

The congress repudiates to the fullest extent possible the efforts of the revisionists, which have for their object the modification of our tried and victorious policy based on the class war, and the substitution, for the conquest of political power by an unceasing attack on the bourgeoisie, of a policy of concession to the established order of society.

The consequence of such revisionist tactics would be to turn a party striving for the most speedy transformation possible of bourgeois society into socialist society – a party therefore revolutionary in the best sense of the word – into a party satisfied with the reform of bourgeois society.

For this reason the congress – convinced, in opposition to revisionist tendencies, that class antagonisms, far from diminishing, continually increase in bitterness – declares:

1. That the party rejects all responsibility of any sort under the political and economic conditions based on capitalist production, and therefore can in no wise countenance any measure tending to maintain in power the dominant class.

2. The Social Democracy can accept no participation in the government under bourgeois society, this decision being in accordance with the Kautsky resolution passed at the International Congress of Paris in 1900.

The congress further condemns every attempt to mask the ever growing class antagonisms, in order to bring about an understanding with the bourgeois parties.

The congress relies upon the socialist parliamentary group to use its power, increased by the number of its members and by the great accession of electors who support it, to persevere in its propaganda towards the final object of socialism, and, in conformity with our programme, to defend most resolutely the interests of the working class, the extension and consolidation of political liberties, in order to obtain equal rights for all; to carry on more vigorously than ever the fight against militarism, against the imperialist and colonial policy, against injustice, domination and exploitation of every kind, and finally to exert itself to the utmost to perfect social legislation and to enable the working class to fulfil its political and civilising mission.6)www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1900s/1904/no-1-september-1904/international-socialist-congress-1904

The positive reference to the 1900 resolution was an obvious attempt to correct Kautsky without criticising Kautsky. Not a good omen.
Popular fronts

The popular fronts of ‘official communism’ are in essence a continuation of Millerandism. In the name of combating fascism, fighting for peace, uniting against Thatcherism, ending austerity, etc, etc, the parties of the working class are urged to seek a ‘broad democratic alliance’ with the ‘progressive’ parties of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.

The result? The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties set the limits of the political agenda and the parties of the working class are driven to the right … to the point of being prepared to suppress the working class. Of course, this leads, not to opening up the road to socialism, but to demoralisation and defeat. Why vote for those who refuse to support you against employers? Why vote for those who want to keep the capitalist state intact? No wonder Trotsky branded the popular fronts as a “strike-breaking conspiracy”.

This is what we saw in practice with popular front governments from Spain and France in the 1930s to Chile in the early 1970s. The socialist working class was constantly held back by the need to keep allies on board. Then it was betrayed. Mass strikes were sabotaged, manifestations of dual power wound down, militias disarmed.

The most disappointing thing about today’s calls for a “progressive alliance” is the sheer philistinism involved. In early 20th-century Russia, the idea of stages made a certain kind of sense. Eg, first an anti-tsarist revolution that unites all democratic forces; then, after a considerable historical delay, when capitalist economic development had finally created a working class majority, socialism comes onto the agenda. Such was the Menshevik reasoning. Though their strategy appeared to have a degree of logic, it assumed a Russia in isolation from the socialist revolution in Europe. Hence in 1917 the Mensheviks wanted state power not in the hands of the soviets, but a bourgeois-dominated provisional government, a “progressive alliance”, which would, by its very nature, continue Russia’s war against Germany.

In 2017 this caricature of Marxism has degenerated into a caricature of itself. Things are reduced to simple arithmetic – that is, addition: Labour, plus the SNP, plus Plaid, plus the Greens add up to a voter base that might beat the Tories in 2020. Such is the sum of their wisdom. However, arithmetic alone cannot suffice. At the very least we need to apply mechanics. Political parties move according to different trajectories, rely on different class forces and possess different social weights. Eg, Labour needs to rewin its traditional base in the central belt of Scotland, meanwhile the SNP is committed to a second referendum and Scottish independence. Hence either the Labour Party fights the SNP and its nationalist programme or, in the name of the ‘progressive alliance’, Labour dilutes its criticisms and reconciles itself to the loss of its MPs in Scotland and the permanent disunity of the British working class.

We do not oppose marching on protest demonstrations alongside members of the SNP, Plaid, the Greens, etc. Nor do we oppose rebuilding trade unions alongside members of the SNP, Plaid, the Greens, etc. Cooperation around single-issue campaigns and workplace terms and conditions can only be beneficial. But, obviously, a ‘progressive alliance’ based on the hope of forming a coalition government that manages capitalism stands in flat contradiction to the strategy of organising the working class into a “great, independent political power to fight for the coming of socialism”.

References

References
↑1 Independent Labour Party 1910 annual conference report, p59
↑2 The Guardian February 20 2017
↑3 Socialist Resistance October 15 2016
↑4 Labour Briefing November 2016
↑5 Labour Briefing February 2017
↑6 www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1900s/1904/no-1-september-1904/international-socialist-congress-1904
Democracy and the Labour Party, Momentum

Guide for new Labour Party members

The task of transforming the party into a real weapon for the working class remains crucial. All members should get actively involved in this struggle. However, this is easier said than done. The Labour Party is still dominated by a bureaucratic middle layer that interprets the rules and procedures as it sees fit. It does not help that the Labour Party rulebook is almost a hundred pages long and written in pure Bureaucratese. The guide is an attempt to explain the party’s most important rules and structures in plain language. We take full responsibility for any inaccuracies or mistakes, of course.  

(Please note that this was last updated in early 2018 – changes introduced since then are not reflected in the booklet. We are currently working on an updated version).

Click here to download in PDF format.

Momentum

Momentum internal elections – LPM recommendations

We are supporting candidates standing for the National Coordinating Group (NCG) who openly condemn the coup in Momentum and who promote taking the fight for democracy and socialism into the Labour Party. However, we do not (knowingly) support candidates of the Alliance of Workers’ Liberty, as we believe that they have played an utterly disgraceful role in the entirely fabricated ant-Semitism scandal in the Labour Party and Momentum. They have supported Jon Lansman’s demotion of Jackie Walker as vice-chair of Momentum, for example – thereby paving the way for his latest coup.

LPM recommends a vote for these candidates:

South East
Stan Keable (LPM secretary) and Jamie Green

Midlands, Wales, East and West
Liz Yeats, Andy Thompson, Rida Vaquas and Phil Pope

North and Scotland
Gary Wareing and Alan Runswick

Refound Labour as a permanent united front of the working class

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