The Labour left grouping Momentum held its first-ever "members' convention" via Zoom on 10 March 2024, eight and a half years after the group was set up.
That the convention was held was good. That much of the time was taken up with "top-table speakers", with debates very rushed, was not so good; that the convention was run so as to rule out policy motions was not so good; and the decisions, in our view, were a mixed bag.
A decision about campaigning in the general election which may (or may not) produce materials which can help left-wingers then was carried. More on that below.
Otherwise, the main decision of possible practical significance was not, in my view, a good one. In an agenda section on campaign priorities for the next two years, three submissions had been chosen in an online priorities ballot, and convention could choose one with a second as a runner-up to be given attention if the Momentum office thinks its capacity up to it.
"Gaza", moved by Carol Turner of Labour CND and Socialist Action, was chosen as "the" campaign priority.
Momentum should indeed already have been much more active on Gaza. It announced a "Labour for a ceasefire now" initiative on social media, but with no follow-up at all in terms of publicising motions passed by local Labour Parties (all of those we know of owe nothing to Momentum stimulus) or even circulating a template motion. It has had no real presence on the street protests.
But the convention vote can't now change that. Its movers offered no accounting for their passivity since October 2023. The vote was more like an exercise in virtue-signalling (and an addled sort of "virtue", to my mind) than a meaningful campaign plan.
The plan is incoherent. It is supposed to be a campaign plan for the next two years, but is focused on immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid. None of its movers expressed worry about Israel-Palestine not being listed among the policy areas on which a later convention motion said Momentum should campaign in the general election. The plan says nothing about the West Bank or about Palestinian citizens of Israel. It has no programmatic content (it does not mention "two states", but does not oppose that policy, either).
The proposal endorsed Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. Some of us pointed out that a big section of the BDS movement has interpreted BDS as boycott of the actual Palestinian-Jewish anti-war movement within Israel, Standing Together, and that in the Corbyn years Momentum never criticised Jeremy Corbyn's (justified) dissent from BDS.
It has no criticism of 7 October or of Hamas.
55% voted for the "Gaza" campaign, against 45% for the alternatives which made it onto the agenda: local government, NHS. In the vote-out for second priority, local government beat NHS 69%-31%. I thought the NHS option best.
The local government proposal was a good one, except for one big gap. It called for more central government funding and reorganisation of local government taxes, but proposed nothing for Labour councillors to do in the meantime except submit to and implement cuts.
Momentum at its height had 40,000 members and many local groups. Its membership and activity have dropped much more since 2019 than Labour Party membership overall. Momentum now has 10,000 members and very few functioning local groups. The last count of Labour membership is 376,000. It was 485,000 in 2019, and 564,000 at its Corbyn peak in 2017. Its Blair-Brown era low was 156,000, and it had recovered to 194,000 under Ed Miliband in 2014.
The convention had 205 people logged into Zoom at its height (for a discussion on constitutional amendments), 135 when it started, 120 for the final sections. The Communication Workers' Union (CWU) played an active part in the debates and voting, but the other unions affiliated to Momentum – FBU, Bakers' Union, TSSA – were not visible. Nor were any other affiliate beyond Labour CND.
Momentum still, however, has eleven paid staff, whereas most other Labour left groups currently and historically have had none. The convention included a presentation on what the staff do. Advice and help for Labour councillors – the presentation claimed a "year-on-year increase in socialist Labour councillors every year", even in recent times — running social media (170,000 followers on Twitter), and seeking a hearing from the mainstream media, ranked highest.
A question about what Momentum might do to promote building active Young Labour groups and student Labour Clubs – it has had majorities on Young Labour and Labour Students committees, but with little "underneath" them – got only the answer "we provide support wherever we can".
The convention passed a motion on campaigning in the General Election. Procedurally, this was a bit mysterious. Members and affiliates were limited in their submissions to "campaigns" (priorities for the next two years), "strategic priorities" (the proposals under that heading had to be, and were, worded in such general terms as to spark little debate), and "constitutional amendments" (note, no policy motions) - and yet this motion appeared on the agenda, outside all those categories.
In broad terms, it suggested that Momentum do something like the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory did in the 1979 general election – a voice for socialism while backing a Labour vote – except for two big differences.
Where that 1979 SCLV sought to give Labour leftists a way to reach out to the working-class public – it produced autonomous election leaflets, which some CLPs used publicly, as was then much more possible than now – this effort would aim its left-wing advocacy mostly at other Labour campaigners. Arguably, that is a realistic adjustment to adverse circumstances. Besides, it is not a sharp either-or matter.
We know that Labour Left Internationalists is discussing a similar project.
The other difference is central: what will the political content of the "voice for socialism" be? The proposal (and no amendments were allowed) listed five ideas, but bland and unclear, with actual decisions to be by Momentum's committee. Oddly, in light of the "campaigns" vote, Israel-Palestine was not among the five. Nor were migrant and asylum rights, Brexit, anti-union laws, trans rights, or the NHS.
So we'll see. The Momentum effort may produce some materials of some use to left-wingers campaigning in the general election. But we'd think it unwise for Labour Left Internationalists to slow down on its parallel efforts, which are likely to carry sharper policies.
There was argument about constitutional amendments, but those passed look unlikely to change Momentum's functioning much.