It was the big story for anyone who attended this year’s Labour conference in Liverpool: the energy at the Momentum World Transformed thing versus the feeling of death warmed over at Labour conference itself. Another narrative around this emerged, post-conference: how long until Momentum itself splits, taking down the Labour Party with it? After all, as we all know, left-wing groups always split; it’s part of their DNA.
An interesting article appeared yesterday afternoon, written by Laura Murray, someone who has been involved with Momentum at a high level since its inception, entitled “Momentum v Inertia”. It is a fascinating look into the inner workings of Momentum – as a result, it has obviously been denounced already by many on the Left.
First off, it must established what Momentum is and isn’t. Tom Watson was incorrect when he wrote off the whole thing as a bunch of angry Trots who had been kicked out by Neil Kinnock trying to crowbar their way back into national politics. If that’s all Momentum was, it wouldn’t be a threat to anyone. No, what fuels Momentum is young people who are scared about where their country is going and what their futures look like; who are scared that owning a house is becoming increasingly a pipe dream for members of their generation; that decent jobs appear to be getting more and more scarce for graduates; they look at the encroaching conservativism of society, given extra oomph via Brexit, and feel it is out of touch with their left-liberal world view.
These are legitimate concerns and it is noble that so many young people wanted to become active in politics to try and change things. This often gets lost when people outside of the far-left talk about Momentum. The problem with the organisation is that at its centre lies the full on embrace of Jeremy Corbyn. And that brings with it two main concerns: one, Corbyn is taking the Left off into the wilderness, making all of the effort of these young people a futile gesture; two, Corbyn’s sympathies ultimately reside with the old Trots that young Momentum activists are now beginning to realise are really bad news.
Laura Murray describes in her article the stark split that already exists in Momentum between the young idealists and the old, shouty Trots. What she isn’t able to yet see is how Corbyn sits at the heart of this split. The younger Momentum activists love Corbyn and feel alienated by the older Trots, particular as the latter tend not even to be members of (or really interested in) the Labour Party. But how else was this all going to play out when the figurehead of the whole movement is an old Trot himself?
Most centrists despise and fear Momentum. I have written before that I really hope that one day all of that energy could go somewhere and have a really positive impact on society. The danger is that the fallout from the doomed Corbyn project is so severe that the energy just dissipates. I hope not.
While I agree with the general thrust, the point you neglect is that all these well-meaning young idealists should have the brains to see that JC is completely unelectable and therefore all their hard work is doing nothing but ensuring that the Tories stay in power.
Yes, it’s hard if they live in the JC social media echo chamber as Momentum’s facebook page blocks you if you post the polling (trust me on this.) But if they can’t see that he’s been behind in the rolling average of all 100+ polls since he became leader, or that since his re-election and no talk of coups, he’s doing even worse, at 8-18% behind in 17 polls, average Tory lead of c.13% and most polls showing the Tories over 40 (as high as 47) and us under 30 (as low as 26.)
Coupled with all the other data such as the lowest approval rating in history, only 16% preferring him to TM, 33% of our 2015 voters preferring him to TM, only 48% of our 2015 voters who supported Brexit saying they’ll vote for JC, losing our deposit in a London by-election for the first time since 1909, and only getting 1,515 votes when the CLP has 1,600 members or 2.2k if you include affiliates, etc etc etc then it’s clear he can never win.
A little research would show them that no leader has ever won if simultaneously behind on both leadership and economic competence. This is what did for Kinnock and Millibean. JC’s figures are by far the worst ever.
So if they don’t have the brains to realise he is completely unelectable, and that their support for him is actively keeping the Tories in power, then I’m afraid I don’t have much sympathy.
Give me the extra 2m voters who don’t care much for politics that we need to beat the Tories over 20k very enthusiastic students every day of the week.