From: Jon Lansman Date: Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 7:39 PM Subject: Proposal to Steering Group: A new constitution for Momentum
To: Marsha Jane Thompson, Christine Shawcroft, Sam Tarry, Jacqueline Walker, Martyn Cook, Michael Chessum, Matt Wrack, Sam Wheeler, Professor Cecile Wright, Jill Mountford, Maggie Simpson Cc: Emma Rees, Adam Klug
Dear Colleagues
I am writing to explain why, in consultation with a number of others in Momentum, the Leader’s office and trade unions that have supported Jeremy Corbyn, I have decided to propose today that we immediately act to put Momentum on the proper footing that those dependant on the success of Jeremy’s leadership need it to be and our members want it to be.
Most of our members joined Momentum because they support Jeremy Corbyn and want to help him achieve what he is trying to do. We must put behind us the paralysis that has for months bedevilled all our national structures, and focus on our most urgent task – winning the general election that could come within months, by turning Labour into an effective force committed to that task, and to the transformative government that would follow.
I have also taken legal advice, based on a review of a substantial body of Momentum records, which is that in order to operate effectively as an organisation with members, Momentum needs written rules or a constitution with which all its members agree, and in our current circumstances, the only way of agreeing such a constitution which is binding on the relationship between the organisation and our members is to seek the individual consent of each of our members and affiliates.
The papers which are included in this mailing set out:
A constitution which establishes a sustainable democratic framework for the sort of organisation we need – an outwards-looking, campaigning organisation to change and strengthen the Labour Party, not to mirror its structures. This constitution would apply from now but would be reviewed in due course and be subject to amendments;
A paper on election process for the new National Coordinating Group to replace existing regional and national structures.
The Constitution may not be perfect in everyone’s eyes, but, whatever process we follow, it is common ground that we need one, and it is surely better to have it now and amend it later by a process that is indisputable. As well as setting out the essential elements of our aims and objectives as they have always appeared on our website and in our public statements, the constitution:
Reinforces our wholehearted commitment to the Labour Party by restating our aim of working towards affiliation, and requiring all members to be party members;
Provides for elections and key decisions including changes to the constitution to be made by our members themselves;
Provides for a structure with minimum bureaucracy reflecting members desire to focus externally on organising and campaigning through our local groups, liberation networks and the Labour Party rather than internally on making policy for ourselves.
If this constitution is agreed, the effect would be to wind up the SC, the NC and CAC, with immediate effect, though the conference would go ahead but under the new rules, no motions would be considered.
If you are happy with all these proposals as they stand, please indicate by email. If there is a majority – I think we all recognise that we shall continue to disagree on this matter – I propose that we seek the approval of members immediately.
In solidarity
Jon Lansman
Chair
Momentum National Steering Group
Some good decisions were taken at the December 3 National Committee meeting of Momentum. However, while the Steering Committee survives intact and Jon Lansman maintains his ‘ownership’ of the organisation, Momentum is seriously flawed – as new leaks and attacks in the bourgeois media show, warns Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists
Around 60 members of the National Committee of Momentum met in Birmingham to discuss, among other things, the first Momentum conference. It was a very fractious and ill-tempered meeting.
Crucially, a motion to recall the current Steering Committee (which has a majority in support of sole Momentum company director Jon Lansman) and replace it with an interim body elected at the NC was voted down by 30 to 29 votes. Even three recounts could not change the outcome. Ironically, Nick Wrack had successfully moved to change the agenda so that this item was discussed first, as he feared it would be excluded because of time constraints. But had this vote been taken later in the day, it is likely that a majority would have voted in favour of it, as a number of pro-democracy members arrived later in the day.
There were some good decisions taken. Most importantly, there will be no OMOV (one member, one vote) voting at or after conference, despite this being the expressed will of Lansman. Conference will decide on a new constitution, a code of ethics and various policy motions – and all of these decisions will be taken by delegates at conference.
Fearing exactly such an outcome, Jon Lansman and his allies on the Steering Committee had successfully prevented the National Committee from meeting since May 2016. On October 28, they even launched a deeply undemocratic coup by cancelling the meeting of the NC scheduled for November 5 and simply declared that the conference would in fact be a livestreamed national debate, with voting then taking place online afterwards. When the national media picked up on the coup and Lansman was asked by John McDonell to ‘sort it out’, he relented and called another NC meeting for December 3.[i]
In the meantime, he has done pretty much everything in his power to stuff the NC with members who support his plans to make Momentum into nothing more than a big phone bank that sporadically sparks into life for this or that campaign. The hastily called elections of additional NC delegates from the “liberation strands” have to be seen in this context.
Ditto the presence of a number of voting delegates from “Labour organisations” who seem to have been there merely on the invitation of, yes, Mr. Jon Lansman. So we had Labour CND, Labour Against Austerity, Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Labour Briefing, Labour Representation Committee, Labour Futures (Jon Lansman’s personal blog) and, farcically, Open Labour and Compass. These last two are not exactly known for their pro-Corbyn-stance, to put it mildly. Needless to say, the list of invitees did not stretch to Labour Party Marxists.
AWL and Momentum Steering Committee member Jill Mountford writes that, “with the exception of LRC delegates (Jackie Walker and Michael Calderbank) the other Labour groups’ delegates voted en-bloc for Jon’s proposals, and were in fact, the only people getting up to support any of his proposals (which were often billed as the Steering Committee’s proposals).”[ii]
Jon Lansman claimed at the meeting that it was in fact the handful of MPs who set up Momentum last year who suggested that these organisations be represented. But there is no method to take groups like Compass or Open Labour off the list of invitees or for other organisations to get involved – chiefly, because there is no official method for affiliation. Only trade unions can affiliate, pay an affiliation fee and then send two delegates to the NC – the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) are the only two organisations officially affiliated to Momentum. Clearly, this situation is untenable.
In any case, Lansman failed this time. The NC saw a tiny pro-democracy majority and most motions were passed “with majorities of 1, 2 or 3 votes”, writes AWL fellow traveller Michael Chessum (who, like Marshajane Thompson, is now still on the SC, although they both haven’t been reelected to the NC, from among which the SC is supposed to be elected).
“Regional delegates, who make up a majority of the NC, almost all arrived mandated to vote for a purely delegate based conference”, he writes in a report that can otherwise be safely ignored: He wants to “build a coalition around a mixed system of decision making” (ie, OMOV plus delegates – a system that clearly is unworkable, otherwise somebody, anybody, would have come up with a concrete proposal by now) and he calls the current debates on the structure and democracy “Mickey Mouse politics” that “need to stop”, while predictably demanding that Momentum should “turn outwards”.[iii]
Opening Momentum
In this, Chessum actually echoes those supporting Lansman’s vision for Momentum. A new Facebook page has been set up “for Momentum members disappointed in that [NC] decision, and who believe all members should be able to vote on Momentum’s future. A delegate based model was originally hoisted onto Momentum without consultation with its wider membership. Letting a small group of delegates decide to maintain their own power, at the expense of all members, isn’t a good starting point for a new political movement. Beyond February, we believe Momentum should adopt a structure that is inclusive and unbureaucratic. We are in the process of transforming the Labour Party, building a parallel organisation with the same structures and procedures of Labour would be a mistake.”
The Facebook page, called Opening Momentum, also prominently features a pretty nasty, gushingly pro-Lansman report of the NC meeting by recently elected women’s NC representative Laura Murray. She claims that, “Naively, I was excited for the National Committee”, but was to be disappointed by all the “infighting” at the meeting. “How silly I was.”
Laura Murray: Not as naive as she pretends
And how dishonest. In reality, she is far from the political newcomer she pretends to be in this report. She works as adviser to Grahame Morris MP, member of the shadow cabinet. Oh, and she happens to be the daughter of Andrew Murray, member of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and out and out Stalinist. Seamus Milne is a close family friend.[iv]
And look how well he has taught her. Laura writes that she “is not anti-Trotskyist per se, but thinks that “the sectarian attitude taken by Trotskyist groups within Momentum is destructive to our movement”. She has a go at the Alliance for Worker’s Liberty and then turns on those purged from the Labour Party on the most spurious grounds:
“Given that Nick Wrack, Jill Mountford and Jackie Walker are, in turn, blocked, expelled and suspended from being members of the Labour Party, it is unsurprising that they care little for reforming and democratising the Labour Party and even less so about getting it elected into government.”[v] Do we see here the beginnings of an attempt to oust those members of Momentum who have been expelled and suspended from the Labour Party?
The Guardian, who quotes generously from her article, writes that, “The development has meant that Lansman is threatening to walk away from Momentum, Labour sources said.”[vi] If only.
Quite the opposite seems to be happening. Opening Momentum looks like Lansman’s call to arms, perhaps his organisational vehicle to reinforce his grip on the organisation. Needless to say, it is more than ironic that the man who launched an outrageously undemocratic coup in Momentum is now trying to claim the mantel of democracy.
Clearly, he is very unhappy with these decisions taken by the National Committee:
Conference will take place on February 25 (or one week either side of that)
Branches select delegates (2 per 100 members or any part thereof)
Each local branch can submit one motion. Ditto Momentum Youth and students, each “liberation group”, each affiliated union, the national committee and each regional committee.
Members in areas without local Momentum groups are “to be represented at the same rate as members in groups, elected by OMOV ballot in regions”. 30 of those members can also submit a motion
Motions to be submitted up to three weeks before conference on aims, structures, ethics, policy and campaigning.
An open e-forum for all members will be set up, where motions can be discussed, amendments can be mooted and compositing processes can be arranged.
A Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) has been elected, which has a small left-wing majority (4 to 3). We sincerely hope that this will prevent those crucial decisions being overturned again.
Why is Lansman so powerful?
Jon Lansman: controls Momentum database and income as sole company director
But, as we all know, Jon Lansman and his allies have overturned decisions before and he basically makes up Momentum policy as he goes along. Momentum is still very much the private property of Lansman, who is the sole director of various companies that “own” the Momentum database and its income. And he treats it very much like his private property.
For example, in mid-November he launched the MxV platform, which asks members to post “proposals” (ie, motions) for conference which are ranked by how many members have clicked the “support” button featured next to each headline. There is now a long list of no less than 300 proposals, which range from the supportable to the bizarre. Clearly, nobody can read them all – and that is of course the point of the OMOV system favoured by Lansman: it is not “empowering”, as people like Paul Mason[vii] claim, it is exactly the opposite. It alienates people, makes them less engaged with Momentum, sidelines the branches – and concentrates all power in the hands of King Jon.
It is of course noteworthy that Lansman launched this platform a couple of weeks before the December 3 meeting of the NC, which was tasked with deciding on how motions should actually be submitted. Clearly, he thought he had it in the bag and that his proposals for an OMOV conference would be supported at the newly stuffed NC. (I recommend the report by Josie Runswick, LGBT rep on the NC, on this matter, as she usefully publishes Jon Lansman’s full OMOV proposal, which can only be described as a bureaucrat’s wet dream [viii]).
Also, there are enough ambiguities in the motions voted through by the NC for us to remain on our guard:
The NC voted in favour of an “online priorities ballot”, which can only mean that some motions submitted will not be heard at conference. Such a ballot (presumably organised via the already existing MxV platform) is also designed to bring easily digestible and short motions to the top. Who wants to read a proposal for a constitution that could actually work (and therefore would have to be of a certain length). Boring!
Local branches are “encouraged to composite motions (motions composited by more groups will move higher up the agenda as incentive to composite). Amendments to be circulated before the conference.”[ix] However, it is not stated which Momentum bodies can actually submit amendments or how many. The tight timeframe will also make it rather difficult for Momentum branches to meet and discuss motions or amendments.
The National Committee and regional committees “may send 1 motion or constitutional amendment”. The problem is that there is no constitution yet, so how can it be amended? Or does Lansman have some kind of draft constitution in his back pocket that he will surprise the organisation with just before conference? Via his SC, perhaps? Why don’t branches have the right to submit “constitutional amendments”? It is all very unclear.
Ideally, all of these issues should be resolved by the CAC soon. But the Steering Committee could again overturn it all – it has done similar things before. Also, the next NC (scheduled for January) could easily see a small majority for the Lansman wing, if a couple of pro-democracy people are absent for some reason.
In any case, the Lansman wing has the clear advantage in the current struggle. Not numerically. Needless to say, most members want democratic control over the organisation that they pay regular dues to.
But it is important to understand why Jon Lansman can command such power. After all, he is just one man. We have been told not to “personalise” things so much by placing the blame for Momentum’s inertia onto his shoulders.
But Lansman has been tasked by ‘our Jeremy’ to set up and run the organisation. There are quite a few members of the SC and NC who work for Corbyn and/or the Labour Party. Clearly, they understand that any future career in the Labour Party and parliament depends on them ‘playing nice’.
They know that Corbyn has given his okay to the deeply undemocratic set up of the organisation, which is “owned” by a couple of companies that Lansman is the director of. Momentum was never designed to be democratic or to be run by its members.
Just like the Labour Party itself, Momentum is split, though of course the fault lines do not run between those that want to keep Corbyn and those busy plotting his overthrow. Momentum is split between those who want peace with the right (justified by the mantra that any Labour government is better than a Tory government) and those who think we should be fighting for some kind of socialism.
All those pesky lefties who come to Momentum meetings and talk about mandatory selection of MPs, the need to transform the Labour Party into a real party of Labour or the fight for socialism are viewed as nothing but a diversion. In fact, branches are seen as a diversion, especially those that function well.
Momentum is supposed to be an extension of the Labour electoral machine, designed to support Corbyn in the event of the next coup (which will come sooner rather than later). It is far from impossible that Lansman will be told to close down the organisation if the left becomes too powerful or branches become too autonomous and energetic. Anybody who then continues to use Lansman’s database will make themselves liable to be sued – and probably successfully, it should be noted.
To sum up. Of course, it’s great that the left, pro-democratic wing in Momentum has managed to pull off a couple of victories on the NC. Clearly, all is still to play for in Momentum. But as long as Lansman is in charge of the organisation, it cannot become anything more than a fanclub for Jeremy Corbyn.
Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists reports from the November 5 meeting of members of the Momentum national committee
Thirty-four people, including observers, attended the unofficial meeting for members of Momentum’s national committee, which was held in Birmingham on November 5 on the initiative of Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union.
This a was an important attempt to stand up to the decision by a small majority at a hastily called emergency meeting of the Momentum steering committee on October 28 to cancel an official meeting of the NC, which was supposed to take place on November 5 and make decisions on how Momentum’s first ever conference in February should be run. Instead, the SC – by a vote of six to three – decided that it should also make one of the most crucial decisions on the matter: namely, that conference should be organised not on the basis of local delegates, but ‘one member, one vote’ of the entire membership. A coup, in other words.
No wonder then that Momentum regions and branches up and down the country were livid. They had, after all, held meetings to discuss and make – mostly critical – amendments to the proposals put out by the Momentum office in early October on how to run conference. In the absence of a ‘horizontal’ line of communication between Momentum members or branches, it is difficult to know precisely what all the regions and branches decided, but, judging from posts on Facebook and the occasional report or set of minutes published, it looks like most regions favoured changes to the proposals (which, it should be stressed, did not come from the elected steering committee itself, but from Jon Lansman and a couple of his allies on the SC).
For example, many regions criticised the Omov plans and instead argued either for a delegate conference or a ‘hybrid’ and there were lots of proposals to lower the threshold needed to submit motions to conference. According to Lansman’s suggestion, a motion would need the support of 1,000 members before it could be heard at conference – an impossibility for any motion that is not supported and pushed by those having access to the database. The proposals criticising such nonsense seem to be the real reason why the NC was cancelled.
Immediately after the cancellation was announced, four Momentum regional conferences, a number of branches and dozens of individual members protested loudly against the move. Bourgeois newspapers quickly picked up on the “looming split” in Momentum, which in turn led John McDonnell to call an emergency meeting between comrades Lansman and Wrack to sort out the mess and limit the damage. Together they drafted a statement that was put to the SC on November 2 and initially attracted the unanimous support of its members. (Jill Mountford has since recanted, as “I woke up in a cold sweat and thought, I shouldn’t have signed this”, she said in Birmingham – though it is probably more likely that the cold sweat was down to a phone call from the leadership of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, of which she is a member).
The new statement, which “recognises and regrets the discontent and frustration felt by Momentum members in recent days”, gives some ground to the opposition by confirming that a new NC meeting will take place on December 3 and partially retreating on the voting arrangements for conference: “There will be both a physical delegates conference to thoroughly debate proposals submitted from the membership, and then Omov voting on the proposals in the period after the conference. The details of this procedure will be determined over the coming week.”
Yes, good luck with that. There was no such recommendation forthcoming at the Birmingham meeting – and it is doubtful whether there is any way the two methods can be combined, despite half of those present on November 5 arguing for a “hybrid”. More on that below.
Mess
Although the November 2 statement undoubtedly reduced the number of those travelling to Birmingham three days later, there was clearly still a strong desire to discuss what had happened and how similar undemocratic moves by a small leadership (whose democratic credentials are shaky, to say the least) can be avoided in the future.
Eighteen of the attendees at the November 5 meeting were members of the national committee. The AWL had four comrades present and there was a member each from the Labour Representation Committee, Red Labour, Socialist Appeal and Labour Party Marxists. A journalist from Socialist Worker was shown the door before the start of the meeting and, after a brief discussion, a member of the Socialist Party in England and Wales was also barred from attending.
Four members of the Momentum steering committee were present: Jackie Walker, Matt Wrack, Jill Mountford and her AWL fellow traveller, Michael Chessum. But because of the outrageous decision by the AWL to effectively support the right’s witch-hunting of comrade Walker by demoting her from the position of vice-chair of Momentum on the initiative of Jon Lansman, there is clearly a lot of bad blood between those four ‘left’ members on the SC.
Funnily enough, as the first speaker of the day, Jill Mountford started off by saying that “we shouldn’t turn on each other and witch-hunt each other”. Clearly, that was not meant as an apology to Jackie, but was perhaps intended as an attempt to stave off criticism of the actions of her own organisation.
But Jackie made her displeasure known, complaining, “The things that have happened to me have created a culture that has made the current move possible.” Too right. She was also self-critical: “Some of us have been coerced into supporting things that we wouldn’t have otherwise supported” – for example, the “lack of democracy within Momentum has been present for a long time”.
Comrade Wrack described an organisational “mess”, with “badly planned and badly run” meetings of the SC, where “outcomes are unclear and it is even less clear who will act to implement which decision”. There is a real discrepancy between the elected officers and the staff in Momentum office, “who don’t come from a labour movement background” and don’t know “that they are supposed to put into action the decisions that the elected officers have made”. He warned that this “tyranny of structurelessness” means that “people get away with all sorts”.
Speaker after speaker shared stories about the lack of democracy and, crucially, the inefficiency of the organisation. A comrade from Worcester told us how for months he pestered the office for contact details of other Momentum members locally, so he could set up a group: “Now I know there were six of us doing exactly the same thing at the same time. We all got the same reply from Momentum: silence.” Some of them actually bumped into each other when they were distributing Momentum leaflets at the same event.
Of course, Jon Lansman and his allies on the SC have used the fact that about a third of Momentum members are currently not organised in branches as a reason to push through Omov. In fact, like so many problems with the organisation, this is the fault of the leadership of Momentum, which is clearly not facilitating the organisation of local groups. If anything, the opposite is taking place: local groups are not allowed to send out their own emails (they all have to go through Momentum nationally), they do not receive a penny from the dues of 20,000 members and are often discouraged from organising activities.
Nevertheless, despite the obvious democratic deficit at all levels, there is clearly no desire to “split Momentum”, as had been reported. “I am here because I am convinced we still have everything to play for within the organisation”, said Matt Wrack. “We can’t throw this opportunity away and this assessment colours my whole tactical approach.”
A range of proposals were put forward in a useful if rather wide-ranging brainstorming session on how to democratise the organisation in the run-up to conference: they ranged from the need to publish the SC’s minutes and to clarify that the steering committee is subordinate to the national committee; that a new SC should be elected at the next NC meeting; that the Momentum office should help setting up local groups; to, crucially, the need to challenge the current company set-up, which gives Jon Lansman as the sole director total control over Momentum’s database – and money. Michael Chessum told the meeting that he happened to be in the office when he “overheard that Momentum had given a substantial donation to the Jeremy for Leader campaign and had seconded staff and equipment”. Chessum is the treasurer of Momentum, we should add. He should – at least – have been informed of such a decision.
It seemed to me obvious that the four members of the SC who were present should take a lead in cohering these proposals into a range of motions that regions and branches could move locally in order to give direction to those calling for more democracy. However, there is so much bad blood between the four that this is not going to happen. So the proposals are now being shared online in rough format by those who attended the meeting, with people naturally stressing those things that they found most important. An unsatisfactory outcome.
OMOV
Very interesting – though with an even less concrete outcome – was the discussion on ‘Omov versus delegate structure’ for conference. Speakers correctly identified that there are “two distinct visions” for Momentum: One, personified by Jon Lansman, is the idea that getting Jeremy Corbyn elected was the main thing that Momentum should do. From now on, it should exist as a centrally controlled organisation with lots of money and lots of staff that can organise lovely Facebook campaigns. Members of such an organisation can occasionally be activated to organise phone banks when the next coup or general election comes – but otherwise are nothing but “silent foot soldiers”, as Jackie Walker put it. Omov probably does look attractive to all those members who have so far been denied a real voice in running the organisation as a direct result of the lack of democracy in Momentum, as one speaker put it.
The other vision was supported by pretty much everybody in the room. This understands that “we are not a Jeremy Corbyn fan club”, as Matt Wrack put it. According to this outlook, Labour lefts need to actively organise in every ward and every Constituency Labour Party in order to remake the whole party from top to bottom if we are serious about fighting for a socialist future. Jeremy Corbyn is not going to do it for us.
A top down conference, followed by an Omov vote some time later, is, of course, designed to support vision 1, whereas a delegate structure is based on the need for active branches, discussion and debate amongst members – vision 2. These two visions are now openly clashing, with Jill Mountford warning that “Jon Lansman could not be more dismissive of local groups. He utterly rubbishes them at every opportunity – that is no secret.”
Her fellow AWL traveller, Michael Chessum, unsuccessfully tried to calm the waters by insisting that “I don’t think a lot of it is an active conspiracy, but there are also a lot of genuine mistakes and cock-ups. I don’t want this to become too personalised around Jon Lansman, who is not just a control-freak. Let’s show some good will.” He was openly laughed at and stopped talking after noticing that “everybody is rolling their eyes at me!” “You are kidding yourself if you think that Jon Lansman has learned a lesson,” warned Jackie Walker.
She is right. Vision 1 and vision 2 are clearly incompatible. Which is why it is a shame that about half the attendees in Birmingham supported the idea that conference could be run on a “hybrid” between Omov and a delegate system. A few seem actual fans of Omov, though most seem to think that “the genie is now out of the bottle”, as the SC had already agreed on such a method. “Now we have to make it work, otherwise we will have an insurgency on our hands if we try to overturn this decision at the next national committee”, said comrade Chessum (to the disdain of some AWL members, who heckled him).
The devil, of course, is in the detail – how on earth would it work? Would those at the “physical delegates conference” vote on the proposals before them on the day? If so, what if the ‘clicktavists’ at home subsequently overturned the decision of those they had delegated, many of whom are actually running Momentum locally? Who is going to implement such decisions? Would that not make Momentum even more undemocratic and ineffective? Everybody at our meeting argued against such a use of Omov.
Overall, this was a useful gathering, but it painfully underlined the need for the left within Momentum to start organising. The recent ‘mass amnesty’ of those suspended by Labour and the real possibility of an early general election make it imperative that the left gets its own house in order. This is still somewhat hampered by the fear of some in the room that this could be seen as a “split” within Momentum (which nobody argued for) or the forming of ‘a party within a party within a party’ (which is, in fact, just what is needed).
Click below for the speech by Matt Wrack, leader of the Fire Brigade’s Union and member of Momentum’s Steering Committee, at the conference of the Labour Representation committee conference on October 29. He spoke openly and critically about what is happening within Momentum. He explains the side of the story strangely ‘erased’ from communications coming from ‘the Momentum office’ (who authorises or actually sends these is never quiet clear). He details about emergency meetings, short notice and above all that there is more than one opinion about the way forward for Momentum. Messages to members have erased all this and present a sanitised and created version of “reality”. Hence Matt’s comments are important to hear, not to disregard any one view, but to hear all views – after all that is democracy.
On the evening of October 27, Jon Lansman, the sole director of ‘Jeremy for Labour’ company (renamed from Momentum Campaign Ltd in the summer), called an emergency meeting of the Momentum Steering Committee for the evening of October 28 – ie, with 19 hours’ notice. With some members who would be more inclined to push for democracy in Momentum not able to attend at such short notice (for example, Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union and Jackie Walker), the meeting decided – by a vote of six to three – to cancel the November 5 meeting of the National Committee. This NC meeting was scheduled to take decisions on the organisation of our first national conference in February 2017.
In an email issued by Momentum this morning to “local groups’ key people” the decision is justified by the fact that “some Momentum members, groups and regional network meetings had raised concerns about the organisation of the 5 November National Committee meeting, the process leading up to it and democratic representation and participation for Momentum members more broadly”.
This is true, of course … and entirely the fault of the self-same committee that is now shutting down our democracy altogether! This body gave branches and regional committees almost no time to meet and discuss proposals for the conference or to choose delegates for the November 5 meeting. In fact, most members have not even seen the various proposals on the future of Momentum and how the conference might be run.
So, to summarise, the Steering Committee has conceded that it used crassly undemocratic procedures in the recent past – and now looks to make amends by denying Momentum branches and members the chance to meet, elect delegates and impose their democratic will on our founding conference!
In addition, the Momentum Steering Committee was elected by the National Committee, which means a lower body has just voted to disallow the higher body from meeting! Both were originally convened on very shaky democratic grounds in the first place. This was partially addressed when February’s National Committee meeting decided to elect the Steering Committee for the coming six months only – ie, up to August.
But there have been no elections for a new SC. The SC has not called a meeting of the National Committee – the body empowered to actually vote for a new Steering Committee, for six months.
It’s total shambles – an affront to democracy in our movement.
One member, one vote
Lansman (pictured) also managed to push a motion through the SC which stipulates that our conference must be organised via a system of “online voting for all members” – the full 20,000 of them, one assumes!? Of course, the merits or otherwise of the various was forms of representation for the conference was to be decided by the November 5 National Committee … which has now been spiked, of course.
An excited email was sent to all members this morning from Momentum centrally. In addition to informing us of the online voting farce above, it states that, “Over the coming months, members will propose their ideas on Momentum’s aims, ethics, and structure. We will use digital technology to ensure that all members can be involved and shape Momentum’s future.”
This package of measure is the very opposite of democracy. It is designed to totally atomise individual members and undermine conference as the collective decision-making body of Momentum. It underlines (once again, unfortunately) the extent to which the left has internalised the defeats of the past decades.
To add to the confusion, it is still unclear precisely what Lansman and his allies are actually proposing. Jill Mountford takes a guess that “it seems what they mean is that delegates to Momentum conference will not take any decisions but votes will instead be taken by an online ballot of all members afterwards.”
This is worse than anything Tony Blair managed to foist on the Labour Party. How could we ever again gripe about the bowdlerising of Labour Party conference democracy if we acquiesce to the travesty that Jon Lansman and his cohorts at attempting to finagle us into?
Also, we are still in the dark as to how motions might be proposed to conference. The original Lansman plan required an initial 50 signatures for a motion to progress further. After several more hurdles had been vaulted, 1000 signatures would be required for a motion to be heard by conference. Many branches and regional committees have criticised this, calling for the threshold to be lowered. It is very likely that the National Committee meeting of November 5 would have overturned restrictive stipulations like these and challenged many more of the plans of Lansman and co.
Much better to just stop the NC from meeting at all!
Distrust of the members
At the heart of this outrageous manoeuvre lies a deep, morbid distrust of the members and democracy. As SC member Jill Mountford (a member of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty) puts it in her report: “Sam Wheeler and Jon Lansman spent far too much time arguing that local groups and the regional committees were undemocratic and unrepresentative.”
Again, this is a true observation from Lansman. And again, it is monumental hypocrisy. This democratic shortfall is precisely the fault of his exclusive team who currently run Momentum. The truth is this:
Momentum branches are forbidden to send emails to all Momentum members in their area. All communications must be routed through Momentum nationally, presumably so the content can be vetted.
Momentum branches have been told not to bring their members together in constituencies and wards to work to maximise their political impact in these geographical units of the party. This makes it very hard to effectively cohere the Labour left in these locales. The official reason for this restriction is that the Labour Party does not allow the affiliation of organisations with a ‘mirror’ structure, as the rule book dubs it. But then, Momentum is not affiliated to the Labour Party, it is not a party. Its members should be working together in cohesive units, sharing experiences and discussing in their democratic local forums the direction of their national organisation.
Apart from sending out insipid campaigning news, the Momentum leadership does not communicate with its members. There are no minutes, no reports, no agendas of the organisation’s committees. Some “key contacts”, as they are dubbed, in some branches sometimes receive a little information. A few of these comrades forward this intel to some other people some of the time. In effect this has helped to create local cliques that monopolise key information. The vast majority of Momentum membership have no idea of who runs their organisation, what decisions they take and how.
We reiterate, this is an anti-democratic coup. An affront to democracy. Momentum’s claims to represent some sort of clean “new kind of politics” is starting to look very grimy indeed. In truth, these methods borrow heavily from Stalinism and the repressive bureaucratism of rightwing Labourism.
Click here to see Labour Party Marxists’ alternative proposals for a democratically run conference. We are currently preparing a set of proposals on how Momentum as an organisation should be run and structured democratically.
The London Momentum regional committee on October 29 voted by 31 to 0 (with 2 abstentions):
This meeting of the London Momentum Regional Committee censures the National Steering Committee for cancelling the meeting of the National Committee that was scheduled for 5 November and agreeing a method of organising the national conference without waiting for the National Committee to discuss it.We do not recognise the legitimacy of the Steering Committee to make these decisions. We call for these decisions of the National Steering Committee to be rescinded and for the NC to proceed as originally scheduled on 5 November.
Momentum Northern Regional Network, meeting on October 30, voted with 14 votes to none:
“Momentum Northern Regional Network censures the National Steering Committee for cancelling the meeting of the National Committee that was scheduled for 5 November and for agreeing a method of organising the national conference without waiting for the National Committee to discuss it.
“We do not recognise the legitimacy of the Steering Committee to make those decisions. The Steering Committee was elected by the National Committee on an interim basis for a now expired term and it has no right to usurp the authority of Momentum’s sovereign decision-making body.
“The Steering Committee’s decision to impose online referenda on the organisation regardless of the feedback from local branches goes against all traditions of democratic good practice in the labour movement; it is disrespectful to the many members who have worked hard to develop local branches and regional networks; it undermines our efforts to promote meaningful participation in the Labour Party; and it will turn Momentum into a top-down, officer-led organisation.
“We call for the Steering Committee’s decision regarding the format of the conference to be rescinded. We support the National Committee proceeding as originally scheduled on 5 November with full authority to decide how a conference should be organised.
“We also call for the National Committee to recall the current Steering Committee and elect a new line-up to take Momentum’s work forward until the national conference.”
South East Regional Committee meeting voted (10 for, 2 against, 2 abstentions) on October 30:
This meeting of the South East Momentum Regional Committee censures the national Steering Committee for cancelling the meeting of the National Committee that was scheduled for 5 November and for agreeing a method of organising the national conference without waiting for the National Committee to discuss it.
We do not recognise the legitimacy of the Steering Committee to make those decisions.
We call for these decisions of the national Steering Committee on the conference and the National Committee to be rescinded and for the NC to proceed as originally scheduled on 5 November and in the event that the steering committee does not rescind its decision we support Matt Wracks call for an unofficial NC to take place on 5th November.
Eastern Region Momentum Conference, October 29
Momentum NC member John Pickard
There were about 80 present, including delegates from 13 Momentum groups. The agenda and procedure was agreed by a short ‘pre-meeting’ so that delegates had ownership of the whole process. The meeting elected myself and Dr Sue Eason (Bedford) as NC members for the Momentum Eastern region until next year’s conference. This means that Marshajane Thompson is no longer on the NC and should not be on the Steering Committee either.
We passed a resolution, moved by Ian Ilett, on the following lines:
“This conference believes that the National Committee is at present the highest democratically-elected body of Momentum and should have control over the organisation of the forthcoming national conference”.
I can’t remember the wording exactly.
The conference also condemned the postponement of the NC on November 5th.
Feedback we’ve had from delegates and visitors who were there (via Loomio) has been extremely positive. They enjoyed the conference, the discussion, the comradely mood and the general atmosphere. We were trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot and we made a fairly good job of it. We’ll do a better job next year.
The Labour Representation Committee voted at its October 29 conference:
LRC AGM condemns the decision of yesterday’s Momentum SC to cancel the scheduled NC for 5th November and its decision to abandon a delegate conference in February.
Refound Labour as a permanent united front of the working class
