Momentum: a new kind of politics.

AuthorKlug, Adam

Momentum builds on the energy and enthusiasm from the Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Leader campaign. Our goal is to increase participatory democracy, solidarity, and grassroots power and to help Labour become the transformative governing party of the twenty-first century.

Ours is a highly ambitious project. It develops directly out of the argument put forward in the Jeremy for Leader campaign that we need a Labour government--but not just any Labour government, one that will shift wealth and power out of the hands of a small elite and into those of the overwhelming majority. To do so, we need more than Corbyn as leader. We need to build grassroots power now: the ability for ordinary people to influence and change the world in their interests, through their own institutions. One of the cornerstones of our strategy is to enhance participatory democracy. This means developing processes of collective organising that are directed and controlled by those directly affected by decisions. We must maximise people's participation, agency, and empowerment in systems affecting their lives. We also need to build solidarity: the principle of mutual aid, empathy, and collective action.

This process offers Labour the possibility of not only being a transformative government but also radically reshaping the political terrain around it, like Attlee's 1945 government or Thatcher's 1979 government did. That's no small task. To accomplish it, we are developing and supporting a grassroots network to unite people in their Labour Parties, communities and workplaces to win victories on the issues that matter to them. We aim to link this network with other movements and campaigns to build a diverse, united, mass movement for political change. This is a bottom-up process, using the experiences and creativity of ordinary people and building their capabilities to make politics and power more accessible to more people.

We want, in particular, to encourage a diverse range of people to join the Labour Party and help it become a genuinely mass party once again that is more open and member-led, and organises more effectively in communities. And we want to help Labour to be the political voice of this movement, win elections and have the capacity, socialist policies, and collective will to transform society in the interests of the overwhelming majority when in government.

The Corbyn coalition

When Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership election last summer, the organizational strength of left, progressive and democratic forces in Britain was at a historic low after forty years of neoliberalism. While trade union support was significant, pre-existing left organisation alone did not cause Corbyn's victory. Rather, it was the product of a feeling of dissatisfaction across the general population that happened to find expression through a Labour Party leadership election.

Momentum reflects the diverse coalition of people who supported Jeremy for leader. Within this group, we can pick out four main tendencies, with the caveat that these overlap and are not comprehensive:

  1. Extra-parliamentary, social movement activism--particularly post-financial crisis movements along the lines of UK Uncut and Occupy.

  2. More traditional left-wing protest coalitions, such as the People's Assembly and Stop the War Coalition.

  3. The existing Labour left--its remaining MPs, its organisations such as the Labour Representation Committee, and others who 'kept the flame alive' in the party.

  4. The left of the trade union movement, including both unions that have been affiliated to Labour all along, and those such as the Fire Brigades Union that are now re-affiliating.

While the latter three groups are pretty mutually intelligible, the first group mentioned brings a new perspective and experience. This activism is more diffuse, horizontal, and decentralised by nature. In some ways, Momentum is trying to give organisational form to this type of activism, giving it a home in the labour movement and the Labour Party, while connecting the Labour Party and labour movement to new forms of activism and political cultures.

Many Corbyn supporters had been inspired by this new wave of activism; many were not involved in organised politics previously; some did not see Labour as a space for their political expression. But then a candidate arrived who not only championed the causes they identified with, but who was also trustworthy. Vitally, Corbyn was not tainted by the expenses scandal. He was not discernibly motivated by self-interest. He articulated a set of ideas distinct from, and critical of, orthodoxy. Corbyn put forward a new politics of bottom-up, participatory democracy, a new economics of shared prosperity, and a new relationship with the world based on solidarity and peace. These positions struck a chord with Labour members tired of a top down, neoliberal politics, and still angry...

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