Stan Keable, Hammersmith & Fulham delegate, reports on the October 15 meeting of Momentum’s London Regional Committee
At the Momentum London Regional Committee on Saturday October 15, the first for least 6 months, about 33 delegates plus a few non-voting visitors heard encouraging reports from 24 or so Momentum groups – several reporting local memberships running into hundreds. While attendance at local meetings had understandably peaked at moments during the second Jeremy for Leader campaign, most local groups reported regular monthly meetings of between 30 and 90. Local groups are still working with locally compiled membership lists, and are handicapped by not (yet?) having access to Momentum’s central database of local members.
In a discussion on Labour conference and Momentum’s parallel ‘The World Transformed’ event, while congratulating the TWT organizers for its “incredible success”, comrades highlighted Momentum’s failure to focus on organizing the left within the Party. We had a left Leader, but rightwing conference delegates.
To start to redress the balance, CLP secretary Seema Chandwani was invited to tell how the left gained control of the Party in Tottenham over the past 4 years. “It must be because you can do a better job,” she advised. “There would be nothing worse than taking over and messing up.” And she described how the left were “hoodwinked” over the forthcoming London Labour Party conference, which had been expected in February 2017, but the new date of November 12 was suddenly announced, while the right had known that date for months, and had time to prepare. Comrades were rightly discontented in the lack of democratic involvement in Momentum’s last minute backing for the left slate for the London Labour Board elections at the conference – but at the same time thanked the comrades in the London Labour Left for producing the slate.
The major disagreements in the meeting came out in the discussion of motions and amendments. But some objected to discussing motions at all, as this would be “divisive”, and not Jeremy’s “new kind of politics”. A few claimed it would be “undemocratic” for a delegate to vote on a motion on which the group they represented had not mandated them. But that view would leave Momentum hamstrung and unable to respond to events, and I am pleased to say it only gained a few votes.
We then proceeded to debate motions condemning the “unjust suspensions” of Labour Party members, which were all carried overwhelmingly – but not before a 50/50 battle over amendments, which eventually removed criticism of Momentum’s steering committee for its cowardly complicity in the attacks against Jackie Walker, where there should have been solidarity: an injury to one is an injury to all.
The Lewisham motion, moved by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty’s Sasha Ishmael, after amendment, was carried by 27 votes to nil, with 4 abstentions. The final version reads:
“Momentum will, in line with previously agreed commitments, start seriously and publicly campaigning against unjust expulsions and suspensions of individuals ad local parties from the Labour Party – and for reform of the party’s structure and processes to stop such factional abuse of the party machine. It will also include calling on Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and other left-wing Labour Party leaders to be bold on these issues.”
A minority of comrades attempted to delete the second sentence, as the “whole purpose” of Momentum is to support Jeremy and John. Thankfully, this view was defeated by 7 votes to 21 with 4 abstentions. For socialists, criticism of those we support is not only a right, but a duty.
The original motion included “sponsoring and promoting” the forthcoming Labour Purge conference – but I proposed this be deleted, as it was organized by the pro-Zionist Alliance for Workers Liberty, whose members and supporters have been feeding the rightwing ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign and witch-hunt against the left, and who voted for the removal of Jackie Walker from the position of vice-chair of Momentum’s steering committee. The deletion was narrowly carried, by 14 votes to 13, with 6 abstentions.
Back in May 2016, when Jackie Walker was suspended from the Labour Party for the first time round, Haringey Momentum started to organize a solidarity meeting, but it was cancelled by Haringey officials. Haringey Momentum subsequently adopted a resolution “to be submitted to Momentum’s London committee and national committee”, which “regrets cancelling the antisemitism meeting with Jackie Walker on 27/05/2016 and apologises to Jackie”, etc, and “calls upon the national Momentum to fight back against the malicious campaign of suspensions and defend the Labour leadership’s support for Palestinian rights and expose this orchestrated campaign to discredit Jeremy Corbyn and the Palestinian cause.” Although this motion related to Jackie’s first suspension from the Party, the meeting voted to accept it onto the agenda, at the request of Haringey delegate Mumtaz Khan.
However, after a series of amendments were proposed from the floor, it was decided to postpone discussion of the motion, to allow adequate time for a fuller discussion of the issue of anti-semitism.
The meeting then debated and adopted (by an overwhelming vote) a petition which read, after amendment, as follows:
- Condemns the unjust suspension of Labour Party members, many of whom are Black, Muslim, committed anti-racists and/or Jewish supporters of Palestinian rights, and many Corbyn supporters.
- Calls for Momentum to campaign against the purge of thousands of Labour Party members and supporters in the run up to the Leadership election, some of which were targeted for spurious reasons such as tweeting about other political parties. Free speech is a right that should be respected by the Labour Party Compliance Unit.
- Calls for Jackie Walker, a Jewish Black woman and anti-racist campaigner, to be reinstated into the Labour Party.
- Calls for discussion on democratic structures and procedures, suspensions and elections at the national conference [of Momentum] in February.
The original wording had called for Jackie Walker to be “reinstated as Momentum’s vice-chair”, but this was removed in an amendment carried by 15 votes to 13 with 4 abstentions. A victory for the pro-Zionist AWL, which was well-represented among the delegates.
Lack of time prevented discussion of the forthcoming national committee meeting on Saturday November 5, and the proposals from the national steering committee about the “Process for deciding Momentum’s new structures”. These will be debated at a re-convened London Regional Committee meeting on Saturday October 29, 11am start (unfortunately clashing with the Labour Representation Committee’s annual conference). The meeting will also elect 4 new London delegates to Momentum’s national committee, in time for its November 5 meeting. Hopefully, those who voted to remove Jackie from the position of vice-chair – Jill Mountford and Michael Chessum – will not be re-elected.
