My articles on Momentum and Trotskyists

Predictably, my latest Guardian article on Momentum has produced two negative reactions: one, that I’m a right-wing Establishment stooge; another, a sense of glee from those on the right of the Labour Party. Above all else, the latter are saying that actually I’ve contradicted myself from only a few months ago, going from suggesting Trotskyists were tiny in number to claiming they are on the verge of taking over Momentum. I’m going to address the latter claim.

There isn’t a contradiction at all. There are tiny numbers of Trotskyists, either in Momentum or in wider society. In fact there are probably fewer Trotskyists today in Britain than at any time since Leon Trotsky met his unfortunate end in Mexico City.

So, in an article in August, I wrote the following:

If you want to understand the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon in good faith, there is little value in the discussion of entryism that has been taking place over the last week. Now, to be absolutely clear, Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, did not say that the hundreds of thousands of new members who have transformed Labour into Europe’s biggest progressive party were Trotskyists. He said a “small number of people” were, and suggested there were “some old hands twisting young arms”. My experience of young Labour members is that they have a huge capacity to think for themselves and develop their own politics. That aside, Watson highlighting efforts by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) to get involved in the Labour party will undoubtedly fuel a media narrative that Labour is falling under the spell of revolutionary zealots.

Even under Tony Blair’s leadership, there were Trotskyist groups involved in the Labour party, ranging from the AWL to Socialist Action. Undoubtedly some of them see the Corbyn surge as a fantastic recruitment opportunity, or the next stage in fomenting the kind of revolution that has never taken place in a single western country.

This point about Trotskyism and younger people is critical. Trotskyist groups are not seducing younger people. The opposition to the sectarian groups is being led by young people, so-called Movementists who reject Trotskyist dogma and believe in social movements. In my latest piece, I pointed out that younger people are the ones leading the opposition to the older Trotskyists:

Their opponents are younger, idealistic, campaign-oriented and pluralistic, lacking Machiavellian strategic ability — all of which the sectarians exploit. The sectarians smear their opponents as rightwingers, Stalinists, bureaucrats, as having ulterior and sinister motives (this article will be dismissed as the work of a rightwing establishment careerist in the service of a Guardian conspiracy to destroy the left). Everything goes wrong, they believe, not because of their own almost farcical strategic ineptitude, but because of the betrayal of others. Momentum offers hope to young people who have long been demoralised by politics. Those wrecking Momentum — if they succeed — could destroy that hope, and that is unforgivable.

Here’s what I said in my August piece:

There are probably fewer Trotskyists in Britain today than at any time since an ice pick was plunged into the skull of Leon Trotsky almost exactly 76 years ago. There were once Trotskyist groups in Britain with thousands of members: the Workers’ Revolutionary party (defunct), the Socialist Workers’ party (more irrelevant than ever) and Militant (deceased, with a noisy but shrivelled successor party). The political significance of British Trotskyism is minimal. Its influence is mostly confined to blocking entrances to political events with aggressive paper-sellers, and asking questions at political meetings which are really long-winded pre-prepared statements that achieve little other than driving other attendees to think “oh god, what am I doing with my life?”

Which is exactly what I’ve said in my latest piece below: Trotskyist groups simply fail to recruit people and are politically repellant to the vast majority of people who have been politicised in the last few years.

If you’re a British Trotskyist, the last few years have been miserable. The biggest cuts for generations, the longest period of falling wages since the 19th century, huge demonstrations and strikes: but the Trotskyist groups haven’t benefited at all. Their memberships have stagnated or even fallen. They offer no appeal, even at a time of social and political upheaval. They spend years finger-wagging about how the Labour party is dead, denouncing any leftwinger who says otherwise, and then suddenly there is a massive upsurge of the left. Where? In the Labour party.

The whole point about the proposal to introduce online One Member One Vote into Momentum’s voting procedure is that Trotskyists are a tiny tiny proportion of Momentum’s member.

So here’s what I wrote back in September:

Rather than being led by revolutionary disciples of Leon Trotsky, most of Momentum’s leaders aren’t really ideologues of any sort: two are former primary school teachers with a passion for social justice.

To fuel a “reds under the beds who want to collectivise your children” narrative, the documentary predictably bigged up the Alliance for Workers Liberty, a Trotskyist group with 100 members (Momentum has over 17,000), many of whom were in the Labour party when Tony Blair was leader. If it was the searing indictment that had been trailed, Tory MPs would have been all over it. Instead, Zac Goldsmith — the Tory MP who disgraced himself with his racist London mayoral campaign — described it as “weak. It will only reinforce the view that the establishment wants to trash Corbyn. Suspect it’ll have the opposite effect.”

Momentum’s leadership — who I know well — are about as far from Trotskyism as you can imagine. They are completely undogmatic and believe in community and social movements. They’re the ones the sectarians are waging war against.

As my piece today says:

Their proposal for Momentum was this: rather than Momentum’s direction being decided by delegates sent by local groups, it should be decided democratically online. Direct democracy: all of Momentum’s 21,000 members get an equal say. Yet such a movement would destroy the influence of the sectarians. Yes, they can dominate sparsely attended boring branch meetings on rainy evenings and secure the election of delegates. But they represent a tiny proportion of the membership. The more the members are empowered, the more the sectarians are disempowered.

As I’ve said over and over again, Trotskyists represent a tiny proportion of Momentum. There are barely any Trotskyists in Britain. Momentum is led by people who are younger, social movement-orientated idealists, whether you agree with them or not.

What has changed since September — and yes, believe it or not, things can actually change— is that these tiny groups of people have gamed the internal structures of Momentum and achieved a disproportionate amount of influence with no relationship to their actual numbers. That’s why the proposal to introduce One Member One Vote is so critical, because it wipe out their influence at a stroke, as they know themselves.

Momentum is full of people who want to change the world, who are driven by a sense of idealism and a commitment for social justice. The reason I wrote my latest piece is because I am angry at this huge majority being betrayed by embittered sectarian groups who have no interest in anything other taking things over for their own narrow political goals.

If you’re someone who wants a left-led Labour Party, but one that is able to communicate an inspiring alternative that resonates with the majority of people, it is difficult not to attract a huge amount of fire from both sides of Labour’s internal debate. That’s fine. But given the amount of selective quoting today, I thought I’d put the record straight.