But if you are a member, don’t forget to cast your vote
Momentum sent out emails in quick succession on Friday telling members they are not members – and then another shortly afterwards telling them that they are members after all. However, some of those receiving the emails aren’t members – yet still received one telling them they are. Both emails are about the elections to Momentum’s National Coordinating Group (NCG).
Apart from a certain organisational chaos suggested by the pair of emails, they also raise concerns that Momentum’s existing power structures are trying to rally extra support by using the organisation’s resources in a last-minute recruitment drive.
These concerns are even greater given the issues many are alleging with a lack of transparency and real democracy in how ‘Momentum Renewal’ – which many believe is the existing pro-Lansman structure’s attempt to present a new face to members – has been set up and is selecting its slate.
The timetable for the elections is as follows:
Thursday 28th May – candidate registration and nominations open
Thursday 11th June – nominations close (and deadline for new members to join and vote)
Friday 12th June – candidate videos and Q&A
Tuesday 16th June – voting opens
Tuesday 30th June – voting closes
Wednesday 1st July – results
Momentum founder Jon Lansman has said that he is stepping down from the NCG. However, the SKWAWKBOX understands that he is not relinquishing control of Momentum as a company and that his agreement to stand aside is linked to continued support from Momentum for his ambitions to remain on Labour’s National Executive Committee.
A rival slate is being promoted by a new group of left-wing members, ‘Forward Momentum’, under the banner “Refounding Momentum for a New Era“. Its proposal document can be found here.
If you are, or wish to be, a Momentum member then make sure your membership is current or you apply before 11 June.
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Why would anybody join a political group that has such an unaccountable leadership structure? A pre-requisite of Fascism. Momentum has done so much damage.
The damage is entirely down to Lansman. Momentum itself has been more beneficial than damaging (in my opinion).
I’m not a member of Momentum or Labour so it’s none of my business – but if they’d dump the ad execs and their supposedly ‘catchy’ – but actually empty and value-free – names like Momentum ‘Renewal’ and ‘Forward’ Momentum I might take more interest.
I don’t want my politics owned by Lansman and sold by Madison Avenue.
What the fuck is wrong with the words ‘Left’ and ‘Socialist’ anyway?
Oh, and FYI – in terms of direction – there’s left, right, forward and back.
Forward means no change in direction.
I’d join Left Momentum and Left Labour.
Forward Momentum for your information are trying very hard to democratise and break Lansmans hold on the group they have instigated mass membership grass roots participation of selecting from within the grass roots org a leftwing slate for the NCG .
I have rejoined Momentum simply because of this initiative and support it like John McD does wholeheartedly .
From it I hope that it will provide a rallying point for the Left in the Labour party , it did very much good in the early days before Lansman did his coup of the steering comtte and can do so again with support .
TWT was spun out of Momentum and its activists I can think of no other leftwing organisation that has done so much in such a very short space of time to educate the Labour membership in fact if memory serves TWT had more numbers attending than the Party Conf last year !
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The alternatives are at present ….. very few other than carrying on with Sir Eric armrest .. no thanks
Rob, my complaint wasn’t about Momentum members – who I admire, respect and appreciate.
Leaving the Lansman issue aside, it’s the kind of ad exec thinking that’s scared or ashamed of the terms ‘left’ and ‘socialist’ that I object to.
‘Renewal’ and ‘Forward’ are the kind of soundbite fillers beloved of Tories and ad agencies.
I believe in plain speaking not salesmanship.
Didn’t we all have our fill of spin, focus grouping and grinning, empty bullshitters in the Blair years?
If memory serves TWT had more bands and DJ’s than Conference too.
Momentum has done great work – but did it canvass better/work harder for being separate from Labour?
Would somebody please tell me what is the point of momentum, I have always had serious misgivings about Lansman and sorry to say I don’t trust him, I don’t think he should be allowed anywhere near the NEC.
Steve, check out Momentum’s website, and there is of courses the world of difference between Lansman and the leadership AND Momentum activists and local groups – who undoubtedly played a major roll in the result of the 2017 GE – and members.
Please check out This Little Land of Mines documentary:
‘This Little Land of Mines is an independent feature documentary premiering in 2019. It’s about the resilience of the Lao people as they live among and work to clear 80 million unexploded ordnance (UXO) that the United States dropped during the Vietnam War era. Most Americans have no idea the United States was involved in Laos because it was entirely covert. The US bombing of Laos spanned three US presidents and was the largest covert CIA operation in US history.’
https://www.thislittlelandofmines.com/#home-section
Almost everything that emanates from Momentum makes me want to puke; it’s full of smug virtue signalling petit-bourgeois values. The failure to agree a joint left slate for the NEC and letting the right in thereby was the final straw.
That being said, I took a moment to examine the Forward Momentum manifesto in the hope that it might contain the antidote to the one-man Lansman show.
What a disappointment. It took me a long time to wade through the verbage; FM clearly suffering from the all too common ultra-leftist habit of never using one word where 50 will do.
How does a group/slate/movement expect to be taken seriously when, amid all the verbal diarrhoea, it has absolutely nothing to say about three big issues that are either millstones around the party’s neck or reasons for its defeat last December.
First the millstones. I’m talking about the pledges to the BoD and the anti-feminist trans rights agenda. A left group that tackles zionist/racist infiltration of the Labour Party and the quagmire of identity politics by pretending they don’t exist doesn’t inspire confidence.
Second, the elephant in the room. The stratagem that won Sir Steer Calmer the leadership but ensured that Labour bombed at the ballot box and will probably never be elected again for at least a generation, the pathetic idea that kowtowing to the European Central Bank and its masters at Morgan Sachs somehow equates to internationalism.
Finally to the FM “slate.” Now I don’t know many of these people but I do know about Nadia Whittome, the only MP thereon (partly thanks to Skwawk). When you know that she is an AWL place-woman, a big mover in Another Europe is Possible and Labour for a Socialist Europe, was imposed by the NEC against the wishes of the CLP in Nottingham East after an AWL campaign to smear the CLP chair Louise Regan, then the absence of any critique of the real problems besetting Labour becomes logical. The best thing that could be alleged about the AWL is that they’re totally fucking stupid; more likely than not, they’re working for people who really don’t have the interests of the British working class at heart.
I’ve never liked Momentum: after reading this post, I like it even less. Go to your local LP meetings, make contact with like minded people via DLO, CLPD, People’s Assembly etc. Leave Lansman in the dustbin of history and let Momentum wither on the vine.
Momentum. A political organisation used by Lansman to gain power & influence in the Labour Party.A Party within a Party is never a good thing, especially when so unaccountable.