Last September, as the Labour party held its annual conference in the seaside town of Brighton, a parallel festival, ‘The World Transformed’, was held nearby, equally upbeat and celebratory. The event was hosted by the grass-roots movement Momentum, set up in 2015 by Jon Lansman, a long-term Left-wing Labour party activist, shortly after Jeremy Corbyn was the surprise winner of the leadership contest.
Momentum appeared to be something of an anomaly. It swiftly won over thousands of activist members — by April this year, it was reported to have 40,000 members across the country — at a time when membership of political parties had been on the wane. Momentum, while not a party itself, requires its constituents to be members of the Labour Party.
The September conference came in the wake of a performance by the Labour in the June general election that had well exceeded expectations. When Prime Minister Theresa May had announced the election just two months earlier, the Conservative Party had been in line for a landslide victory. However, the party’s confidence swiftly crumbled as the Labour made up ground rapidly.
While the Conservatives lost 13 seats, the Labour Party gained 30 seats. While many factors contributed to the party’s success, one that cannot be denied was the role played by Momentum, whose social media strategy, in particular, helped mobilise support from young people in a way that no British political party or movement had, arguably, done before, with pithy and cutting messages. They included a widely-shared video, “Daddy, why do you hate me?”, in which a daughter reacts in confusion when her father declares he voted for the Conservatives, and attempts to explain away the differences between the benefits he enjoyed as a child (small class sizes, free university education) and what she would get. However, its activism did not stop at social media, using that tool instead to drive intense street-level campaigning across target areas, often relying on young activists. Such tactics helped the party win the historic town of Canterbury (a middle-class student town) from the Conservatives for the first time in more than a century.
New politics
While few could have doubted its effectiveness last year, Momentum has both strong backers and sharp critics. To its supporters, it is the embodiment of the future of a new politics, unhindered by the lethargy and legacy that has restricted the Labour party in the past. The group is currently running “unseat days” to help campaigners prepare for efforts to win seats from Conservative MPs in marginal seats. To its detractors, however, it represents a dangerous, destabilising force, not averse to whipping up anger against those politicians whose world view contrast sharply with its own.
But could the organisation have passed its peak potential? That was the question being asked following a lacklustre performance by the Labour in local election early this month. The odds may have been stacked against the party — against the low expectations with which it went into last year’s general election, it entered the May local poll campaign with ebullience. “Campaigners flooded into communities, knocked on doors and asked residents about their issues and concerns, identified where Labour supporters were, and turned out the vote on election day,” insisted Momentum activist Owen Jones. “Momentum’s campaigning was absolutely critical to the gains the Labour made in the local poll.”
Vidya Ram works for The Hindu and is based in London
