MARCH OF CORBYN’S STORM TROOPERS
‘They’re zealots who’ve never run anything big’
Using intimidation, thuggery and infiltration tactics Stalin would have admired, Momentum – Corbyn’s army of hard-Left fanatics – is seizing control of Labour across the UK. The implications for democracy are terrifying . . .
now control the balance of power in his local party. He was replaced by Janet Ridler, 58, a historian from Dore, the city’s wealthiest suburb. Local party grandee Lord Blunkett proclaimed himself ‘seriously distressed’ at the removal of Harpham, blaming ‘the Momentum drive for deselections’.
In Southwark, South London, similar factors contributed to the purging of Samantha Jury-Dada, a black, working-class lesbian who had worked for a couple of centrist MPs. She was replaced by Jack Buck, who is white and, like many of Momentum’s powerful cohort of middle-class ‘millennials’, sports a fashionable beard.
Then there is Manchester’s first gay Lord Mayor, Carl AustinBehan, who despite boasting impeccable politically correct credentials, has committed a crime against Marxism: founding a successful cleaning company which employs locals to service apartment blocks across the city. He, too, was decapitated by Momentum supporters.
To students of socialist history, these cases represent classic examples of ‘entryism’ — highly organised groups (often with extreme views) joining mainstream organisations before seeking to take control, subvert policies and expand their influence.
It was last widespread in the Eighties, when Militant took control of Labour’s operations in Liverpool, and Ken Livingstone (ably assisted by current Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell) turned the Greater London Council into a stronghold of the so-called ‘Loony Left’.
The damage that was done at the time helped make Labour unelectable for years afterwards. Which perhaps explains why party elder Roy Hattersley has put his head above the parapet, urging members to ‘challenge the subversion’ of Momentum.
‘Labour cannot win while it is associated with extremism,’ he wrote. ‘If the extremists begin to deselect moderate MPs, others — who are, or believe themselves to be, under threat — will split the party and keep Labour out of office for a generation.’
This hasn’t stopped Momentum targeting moderate Labour MPs. Though current rules make it relatively difficult to deselect a sitting parliamentarian (such decisions are taken by local branches and trade unions), Hattersley said he’d spoken to six Labour MPs who reckon they — nonetheless — face the high jump.
Also standing up to Momentum was Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner, who criticised its pro-Corbyn ‘contract’ for MPs as ‘not a way forward’, and said ‘factionalism in the Labour Party will damage us and remove us from getting near power’.
She was remorselessly and viciously attacked on social media for her pains.
To blame for Momentum’s relative recent success is a combination of basic electoral maths and Ed Miliband’s disastrous decision, in 2014, to allow leadership elections to be decided by a ‘one member one vote’ system in which anyone paying £3 a year could have a say.
This has seen around 350,000 new members join Labour since 2015, more than doubling its membership to roughly 550,000.
Almost all the newcomers are supporters of Corbyn. And their faction therefore boasts the numbers to dominate local and national party ballots.
One important result of this is that three Momentum-backed candidates are expected soon to win election to the party’s ruling National Executive Committee.
This will produce a crucial shift in the balance of the body — which has throughout modern history, been balanced between moderates and Left-wingers — in favour of the hard-Left.
One of the three incoming NEC members is likely to be Jon Lansman, the wealthy founder of Momentum, who is regarded as an expert in entryism having spent much of the Eighties seeking to help militant organisations
infiltrate the party. He has just publicly signed a petition calling for every Labour selection ballot in London to be re-run in advance of next year’s council elections, arguing that a host of Left-wing candidates had been unjustly prevented from standing.
Re-running such races would, of course, allow the hard-Left to contest hundreds of nominations.
To understand the hostilities that would be unleashed, one need only witness recent events in Haringey, North London, where at least 17 serving councillors have been hounded out recently.
The borough, where Jeremy Corbyn cut his teeth as a local councillor in the Seventies, is a Momentum stronghold where relations between centrists and the far Left have become bitterly strained over a controversial housing redevelopment involving a public and private sector partnership.
An ugly campaign against the scheme, partly orchestrated by former members of the militant Socialist Workers Party, has seen local party meetings marred by angry demonstrations, and serving councillors subjected to vile abuse on social media.
Almost all moderate councillors have now been forced out or marginalised.
In resignation letters, many have lined up to criticise the ‘aggressive purge’. One, Tim Gallagher, a veteran Labour activist born in the borough, said the local party was now ‘inflamed with division, distrust, and what at times feels like real hatred’. Another, Barbara Blake, chair of the council’s powerful corporate committee, added that ‘the ruthless attacks on every councillor not officially backed by Momentum is unforgivable, and in my view brings shame on our great movement’.
A third, Ali Demirci, described the atmosphere as ‘toxic and uncomradely’. A recent council meeting which passed a motion to crack down on anti-Semitism was interrupted by a cabal of Momentum activists opposed to the move because they think it will stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.
They occupied the public gallery and shouted down any speaker with whom they disagreed.
‘Labour in Haringey is now completely dysfunctional,’ says one outgoing councillor. ‘Meetings, where we used to get actual work done, [are now] endless bickering over points of order, and spurious complaints about what people have been saying about each other on social media.
‘It’s become like student politics, only the people involved are old enough to know better. And similar things are happening in plenty of other parts of London, too.’
Regardless of what eventually plays out at next year’s local elections, Momentum perhaps has its eye on an even bigger prize. For the NEC is currently overseeing a ‘democracy review’ which may alter procedures via which Labour chooses parliamentary candidates.
Left-wingers (who of course will soon control the NEC) have long wanted to make it easier to dismiss sitting MPs and replace them with hard-Left candidates.
Crucially, rule changes that will ease this process will be voted on at next year’s Labour conference, where Momentum supporters are expected to turn out in droves.
Of course, not every purged Labour MP would go quietly. A hefty proportion might stand as independents, splitting the party’s votes and potentially costing it key seats.
Still more would be replaced by far-Left candidates who would struggle to attract the support of mainstream voters.
Yet whatever eventually transpires, the purge under way in councils across Britain makes one thing inevitable: even if the extreme tactics of the Momentum shock troops kill off Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of being elected Prime Minister, and even if (as many expect) Corbyn is no longer leader by the time a General Election takes place, this Militant group is already changing the Labour Party in a way that will take years to unravel.
‘Labour in Haringey is now completely dysfunctional’