03.11.2016

Organise as never before

Matt Wrack’s speech to the LRC conference took the left to task over its lack of seriousness

Momentum presents a huge opportunity for the left, but one which - unless we are careful - could be squandered completely. There are two unions which are affiliated to Momentum: my own, the Fire Brigades Union; and the Transport Salaries Staffs Association. I’ve devoted quite a good deal of my own time to participating in Momentum’s structures, including attending the steering committee and national committee. I have to say that there are some very real problems which we need to face up to.

The first one - and there may be different views on this - was the removal of comrade Jackie Walker from her position as vice-chair of the steering committee. Regardless of what prompted that move against Jackie (and Jackie herself knows that I don’t agree with everything that she’s said), what struck me about this move against her was the following: it took place immediately after the Labour Party conference and was an organised attempt by people with key access to the Momentum office to lobby - in advance of any discussion - to ensure that, when the steering committee meeting took place, it was already a foregone conclusion that Jackie would be removed as vice-chair. It strikes me that, while people are talking of ‘new politics’, we are seeing an exact replica of the machine politics that we want to see the back of, and which we do not wish to see replicated within the Labour Party. I opposed this move against Jackie Walker. Jon Lansman will be coming to speak to us later today [he did not show - ed] and I think he has some questions to answer about the conduct and organisation of Momentum.

I think there are certain norms when it comes to practice in the labour movement. I’m a member of the steering committee and there’s currently a debate about what kind of conference we should have. First of all, it is clear to me that some people don’t want a conference at all. Some of us have been arguing for eight months or so that we should have a conference at the earliest possible opportunity: how can we possibly design rules and structures without having some form of founding conference?

Additionally, there is a debate about what kind of conference this should be. For me, the logical basis of a conference is the local groups. I live in Waltham Forest. The Momentum group there is playing a role in helping to transform the local Constituency Labour Parties and winning positions for the left within them, in drawing people into activity on the left of the Labour Party, in organising campaigns around academisation and other local issues, and also helping to establish other Momentum groups locally. This is precisely what we want to see from Momentum groups. But it strikes me that from the Momentum office, and from Jon, there is great resistance to showing any trust or confidence in the local Momentum groups. But, if we’re going to transform the Labour Party, then this needs to be done on various levels: most importantly at the local level. So organisation within the CLPs and local Momentum groups is absolutely central to how we organise the left within the Labour Party.

At the last meeting of the steering committee, held just over a week ago, two views emerged about the kind of conference we should have. The first position - which I supported and submitted documentation on - argued that the basis of the conference should be delegates from local groups, possibly taking account of comrades from areas where no Momentum groups currently exist. The other mechanism, which was proposed by Jon Lansman, was that there should be an online conference, where people should participate and vote on the web. My concern with this proposal was the following: what would be the point in anybody actually going to the conference if everybody could sit behind a computer screen and click a button? Who would propose things? Well, the truth is this: if you have such a conference, a self-selecting group of people will propose things.

Nevertheless, two points of view. And at that same meeting of the steering committee it was agreed that both points of view would be circulated for consideration by Momentum members, local groups and regional Momentum meetings, which were due to take place in the coming weeks. After all, we had also agreed on a national committee meeting, which was set to take place this coming Saturday, November 5, at which all these issues would be discussed and decided upon.

Then, on the evening of Thursday October 27 somebody made a call for the convening of an emergency steering committee meeting. I opposed that move. And then, at around 9.45 on that Thursday evening, Jon Lansman issued a call for a meeting at 6.30 on Friday evening. I have to say that I don’t know what the emergency was. While there are cases when you might call a meeting at less than 24 hours’ notice (I have certainly done so during strike actions), I don’t think that this was one of those cases and it didn’t seem to me to be reasonable to call people at less than 24 hours’ notice to a meeting - when people may already have other things arranged or be all over the country - to decide the issues regarding conference.

I wasn’t at this meeting, so have heard all this second-hand. But what the meeting apparently decided was to cancel the national committee meeting scheduled for next Saturday - this despite the fact that the steering committee is elected by the national committee and is thus accountable to it. Secondly, it was decided that, although we had previously agreed to circulate both points of view on the type of conference we should have, one of the positions regarding conference - ie, my own - was removed from discussion. Finally, it was agreed that conference will proceed on the basis of an online, ‘one member, one vote’, electronic voting system. I find it all quite staggering, comrades, and am still taking in everything that’s happened during the last 24 hours or so.

I know that the London region of Momentum called a meeting last night precisely to feed in views from London about what type of conference should be discussed at the national committee meeting next week (which, remember, has now been cancelled by the steering committee). This is quite a serious matter from my point of view. First, this kind of practice is highly insulting to the affiliated trade unions: I’m accountable to the executive of the FBU, which took the decision to affiliate to Momentum after a process of consultation within our union structures, and to be treated this way is rather insulting. I think it is also an insult to the national committee and particularly an insult to Momentum’s local groups. It needs to change.

What I have outlined goes to the heart of some of the issues we’ve got to talk about. If we look at the contrasting experience of Jeremy Corbyn’s successful re-election as Labour Party leader and then the experience of the Liverpool party conference, it should become clear that the idea that by sitting behind a computer screen, maybe paying £25, and then clicking a button to vote, we can transform the Labour Party is clearly wrong. If we are going to change things then we need to go much, much further: we need to be organised. Social media is fantastic and opens up many avenues for us, but it’s only part of how we should respond politically. Whether in the trade unions or the Labour Party, if we want to change things, then people - god forbid - actually need to face each other and talk to each other in rooms sometimes. Anybody who thinks it is possible to change the Labour Party (or any other political organisation, for that matter) without doing that is living in cloud cuckoo land.

There’s a lot to be said for the idea of a ‘new politics’. What we don’t want is the machine politics of the last 20 years, which was about stitching up, and carving up, rank-and-file members. But actually there’s a huge wealth of experience in our movement which shouldn’t be thrown away. The people who built trade unions, for example. We might not like all of the rules they established, but there is a lot that Momentum can learn - on how to conduct debates, and so on - from labour movement traditions. So, when we talk about ‘new politics’, I agree with some of it, but there is also a lot of ‘old politics’ that we need to remember and actually recreate: both in terms of organisation and when it comes to politics and policy.

I’ll try and finish on a more positive note. We face huge problems and challenges. First of all, the Parliamentary Labour Party will not let up. There are people who are determined to crush Corbyn and Corbynism - whatever that means. What this entails for the PLP, in reality, is crushing the left within the labour movement to ensure that there is never again the possibility of electing a leftwing leader. By the way, if these people succeed, then the kind of purges and expulsions we have seen thus far will be nothing to what they’ll have in store. We’ll see 100,000 or even 200,000 people booted out of the Labour Party, provided that it keeps them in their safe positions in parliament. We need to wake up to this prospect. Within the machine of the Labour Party, there are serious people who are determined to defeat us.

Secondly, our own forces are not sufficiently organised: we need to build proper left organisations. I hope that organisation is Momentum, but it may be that groups such as the LRC need to fill some of that gap. We need to organise the left within the Labour Party on a serious basis to fight for genuine democracy.

My final point: we also need to discuss politics. The truth is this: Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are not just to the left of virtually everybody else in the PLP: they’re to the left of many of the closest people around them, and can - if we aren’t careful - become the prisoners of these people. That is, unless we can build a serious socialist current within the Labour Party that is prepared not just to fight for democracy, but to raise and argue for what we mean by socialist ideas in the 21st century. I think that is a huge opportunity for us: I won’t go into my views on this matter now, but we need to engage in this discussion. We have the chance of a lifetime - still. I wrote in Labour Briefing last year, after Corbyn’s first election as leader, that this is the best opportunity for us for a generation. This opportunity is still there, but we need to organise as never before if we are to build on the success that we’ve already enjoyed and to consolidate it for the future.