Selections, factionalism, and Akehurst
“We may well have reached 'peak Momentum'. These are the most favourable political circumstances Labour’s hard left could envisage. “They feel politically vindicated by the general election result, have a well-funded, well-staffed organisation holding a vast amount of data on Labour members and have reshaped Labour’s membership through successive rounds of mass recruitment.” So says Luke Akehurst, secretary of Labour First, writing a sober article about Momentum and local council selections in a week of right-wing hysteria from the tabloid press, and with Roy Hattersley and Angela Rayner...