Some readers have contacted the SKWAWKBOX with concerns that the legal precedent set by the Labour party – which directly contradicts General Secretary Iain McNicol’s attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the behaviour of groups such as Progress and Labour First – might also result in the expulsion of Momentum members.
While this possibility did of course occur to this writer, the letter from a Harrow West member was already on its way to McNicol, so the SKWAWKBOX article was not going to put the idea into his head.
However, in any case it’s extremely unlikely that the same legal precedent would apply to Momentum members, for at least two reasons:
Not a ‘political organisation’
Momentum, as it stands, would not qualify as a ‘political organisation’ in the terms of the Labour rule that the Party recently used to expel a Socialist Voice supporter – and is bound by its rules, which have the force of law according to a highly-qualified barrister, to apply to the likes of Progress.
Firstly, unlike the other groups, Momentum does not take ‘policy positions’, which is a key defining characteristic of a ‘political organisation’. A senior Labour figure told this blog: