Magnificent Victory – Moshe Machover’s Expulsion Rescinded

Ken Livingstone must now have his suspension removed

Moshe Machover and Tony Greenstein speaking at the fateful Communist University 2016 - now it appears kosher to appear on CPGB platforms

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Jeremy Newmark, Chairperson of the Jewish Labour Movement’s though I’m going to have a good try!  

The JLM and Labour Friends of Israel had a torrid time at Labour Party conference  Jewish anti-Zionists who denied that there was anti-Semitism in the party got standing ovations for calling out the false anti-Semitism witch hunt, Jeremy Corbyn got rapturous applause for mentioning the Palestinians, the Jewish Voice for Labour and Free Speech on Israel meetings were packed out and to cap it all Corbyn decided that a Daily Mirror booze up was preferable to going to the LFI fringe meeting. 

The article that caused all the fuss!

This is leaving aside the fact that condemnation of the settlements, the Gaza siege and the occupation were also reinstated as Labour policy.  And this week Corbyn has made it clear that he’s not going to celebrate the Balfour Declaration which led to ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Palestinians.

What made it even worse was that a fringe group that no one had ever heard of before the conference, Labour Party Marxists, had distributed a free sheet entitled Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism.  In it was an article by Professor Moshe Machover the founder of the Israeli anti-Zionist group Matzpen.  Moshe’s name may be unknown to Labour Party apparatchik Sam Matthews and Labour’s éminence grise Iain McNicol but he is certainly known to Newmark and the Zionists. 

Matzpen was always the Zionists worst nightmare – it was a joint Jewish-Arab group that was founded in 1962.  It was the first group to oppose the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.  It was the only group to support Jewish-Arab equality as opposed to segregation and Jewish privilege that Zionist groups stand for.  It stood for equality between Jew and Arab whereas Zionism stands for Jewish Supremacy, which is why Richard Spencer, the founder of America’s Alt Right calls himself a White Zionist.

The Zionist press looks forward to the expulsions of 3 more people - Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Tony Greenstein - two of them are Black and two of them are Jewish - this is the Zionist idea of an anti-racist campaign

Telling the truth about Nazi-Zionist collaboration is no longer a disciplinary offence

Machover was a co-founder of the group until he was driven from his academic post at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1968 and forced to come to England where he lives with his family.  He is exactly the type of anti-racist anti-Zionist Jewish activist that Labour should welcome but to the racists and misanthropes who inhabit Southside and groups like Progress, Machover was someone to be feared and removed.

Of course McNicol’s minions and Sam Matthews in particular would have known nothing of Moshe Machover’s distinguished academic record or his political activities.  He was one more troublesome lefty whom they were anxious to be rid of.  Hence their surprise at the reaction to Machover’s expulsion, an ‘auto exclusion’ meaning there was no right to a fair hearing and the transparency we were promised in the Chakrabarti Report.

Matthews first letter of 3 October made it clear that  Machover’s expulsion related to an ‘apparently anti-Semitic article’ published by LPM which ‘appears to meet the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism’.  Matthews informed Machover that ‘anti-Semitism of any form... which may cause offence to Jewish people.... will not be tolerated in the Labour Party.’

Now if you weren’t living in McNicol’s version of Alice in Wonderland you might indeed wonder whether it is anti-Semitic for someone who is not Jewish, like Matthews, to explain to someone who is Jewish what anti-Semitism means.  Some people may call that anti-Semitic!

It’s little wonder that Alexi Sayle in an interview on Sky last week [Alexei Sayle’s shocking denial of Labour antisemitism, Jewish Chronicle 27 October 2017 notes that one of the remarkable things about Labour’s anti-Semitism witch-hunt is that most of those being expelled or suspended are Jewish!

Germany's Zionist paper welcomed the Nuremburg Laws of 1935 whilst world and Germany Jewry were horrified

However the reason given by Matthews for Moshe’s expulsion was writing for and speaking on the platforms of the Communist Party of Great Britain and LPM.  Classic Uncle Joe stuff.  Moshe was told in the latest letter from Matthews of 30 October that he had written no less than 44 articles for Weekly Worker!  Well I haven’t counted how many I’ve written but I suspect it’s not many fewer. Indeed I suspect it may be even more.  And although Moshe’s appearance at the Communist University formed part of the ‘evidence’ of Moshe’s belonging to the CPGB then I should also have been expelled on that basis since I spoke alongside Moshe at both the 2016 and 2017 Communist Universities, although Sam Matthews seems unaware of the latest one!

The reaction to Machover’s expulsion took Labour’s bureaucrats by surprise.  It wasn’t one or two but dozens of Labour branches and CLPs which flooded Labour HQ with motions.  After conference the membership wasn’t having any more of the witch hunt.

It is noticeable during Machover’s expulsion that no one from Momentum, not Jon Lansman not the National Coordinating Group and not one of the left-wing members of the National Executive Committee spoke out against the expulsion of Machover.  Pete Willsman, Darren Williams, Rhea Wolfson, Christine Shawcroft – all of them remained silent.  It was ordinary members up and down the country who made their voice heard.

In his second  subsequent letters Sam Matthews was at pains to stress that it wasn’t what Machover wrote that was the reason for his expulsion.  In his second letter of 6 October, just 3 days after the first, Matthews wrote that ‘for the avoidance of any doubt’ the expulsion wasn’t on account of what he had written.  Which of course begs the question why it was mentioned in his first letter at all.

Equally novel, in the letter of 6 October Matthews invited Moshe to submit an appeal, just in case he’d got it wrong! This too isn’t normal practice.

In his third letter poor Matthews was even more contrite!  ‘I would like to make absolutely clear that the Party has come to no decision about the contents of the article.’  He even apologises if the letter of 3 October ‘was unclear to you.’  But it wasn’t in the slightest unclear.  Under the bogus IHRA definition which deliberately seeks to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism any reference to the dealings of the Zionist movement with the Nazis is de facto anti-Semitic.  The Zionists don’t like to be reminded of the time when they were the darlings of the Nazi state and if you insist on speaking the truth you are anti-Semitic!  It is extremely embarrassing that a monster like Reinhardt Heydrich, a man who the historian Gerald Reitlinger described as the ‘engineer’ of the Final Solution wrote in such glowing terms about the Zionists, stating that the Nazi movement

'is in agreement with the great spiritul movement within Jewry itself, Zionism, whose position is based on the recognistion of the unity of Jewry throughout the world, and the rejection of all ideas of mixing in.

Not a happy man Iain McNicol as everything seems to come apart in his hand these days

What is clear is that IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is actually unusable because it is so clearly intended as a weapon against Zionism’s critics.  It does nothing to help in the fight against anti-Semitism, which is an extremely simple thing to understand.  The IHRA definition is some 450 words.  The definition by Professor Brian Klug, who isn’t a Zionist is 21 words, viz:

antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as

something other than what they are.

If you want to conflate hostility to Israel with hostility to Jews then of course you need lots of words and examples!  What Matthews letter also clouds is that Jeremy Corbyn accepted only the short introduction to the IHRA definition not the 11 examples, 7 of which relate to Israel.  Matthews has clearly decided that the whole 450 word definition plus examples are what should be used.

However now that it is accepted that what Moshe wrote about Nazi support and admiration even for Zionism is not anti-Semitic, then there is no case to answer for Ken Livingstone whose comment that Hitler supported Zionism is exactly along the same lines.

We should savour this victory, but we shouldn’t rest on our laurels.  As the Jewish Chronicle today states:

‘Three forthcoming NCC meetings will involve Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth and Tony Greenstein – all of whom face charges of anti-Semitism.’

We have won a battle but not the war!

Matthews is so taken aback by the reaction to Moshe's expulsion that he sends another letter 3 days later

Matthews letter of 26 October

Labour Against the Witchhunt Forms in Response to Expulsion of Moshe Machover – Join Us

The Compliance Unit and Iain McNicol Are The Last Bastion of the Right

prescient

See the Labour Against the Witchhunt Facebook Page

The time has come to fight back.  The Left simply cannot allow the Right to continue with expelling those they don’t like.  The Momentum leadership under Lansman, which should have taken on the fight against the witch hunt has, instead, got into bed with the witch hunters.  It was Lansman and his friends who laid the basis for Jackie Walker’s suspension from the Labour Party by removing Jackie from her position as Vice Chair of Momentum.  If people really want to see a radical and socialist government under Jeremy Corbyn we have to stop the witch hunt in its tracks.  Indeed we need to be rooting out the Blairite bureaucracy.

Iain McNicol - received a hero's welcome at Labour Friends of Israel - mastermind of the anti-Corbyn witch hunt

Labour Against the Witch hunt was formed on Saturday and we have a few simple positions;

• 1.      No auto exclusions  Everyone has the right to a hearing.  The Chakrabarti Report found that Labour’s disciplinary and complaints procedures “... lacked sufficient transparency, uniformity and expertise” and failed to observe “the vital legal principles of due process (or natural justice) and proportionality”.
• 
  
• 2.      It is unacceptable that there are differing definitions of anti-Semitism.  Anti-Semitism isn’t a difficult thing to define.  It is hostility or hatred of Jews.  You don’t need a 450 word definition unless your purpose is to conflate opposition to Zionism, the ideology that led to the foundation of the Israeli state and genuine anti-Semitism.

Corbyn has adopted the short, two sentence International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The AWL's 'Stop the Purge' supports the purge of Ken Livingstone

This definition is itself too imprecise, open ended and uncertain.  What makes it unacceptable is that it introduces and lays the basis for 11 ‘examples’ of anti-Semitism, 7 of which relate to Israel.  In other words the whole purpose of the definition is to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.  Whilst Corbyn has not adopted these 11 examples the Labour bureaucracy has.  We have therefore adopted the definition first espoused by Professor Brian Klug of Oxford University in his lecture ‘Echoes of Shattering Glass’ delivered in his 2014 lecture in Berlin’s Jewish Museum on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. 

‘antisemitism is a form of hostility to Jews as Jews, where Jews are perceived as something other than what they are.’

The article that triggered the  expulsion of Moshe Machover

 3.      Thirdly our demand is that the Compliance Unit is abolished.  It is completely undemocratic and unaccountable.  Instead all disciplinary action is to be taken by elected bodies in future.

It is important that LAW builds itself quickly in the coming months and engages in a series of activities, such as a picket of the NEC to demand the reinstatement of Moshe Machover to holding meetings and a conference.

A four person Executive Committee was elected – Jackie Walker, Stan Keable, Pete Firmin and Tony Greenstein.

Political Background

The Labour Party Conference just gone was a dismal and dispiriting time for Jeremy Newmark, Mike Katz and the Jewish Labour Movement/Labour Friends of Israel.

When Naomi Wimborne Iddrissi and Leah Levane got up to decry the false anti-Semitism smears of both organisations there was rapturous applause and even standing ovations.  When Jeremy Corbyn mentioned Palestine the audience got to their feet.  Nothing was guaranteed to elicit a cheer more than mention of Palestine.

I realise dear reader that you are unlike to be too sympathetic to Newmark and Katz but I ask you not to be too cold hearted either.  For two years they have campaigned incessantly to conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.  They have secured the suspension of Jackie Walker (twice) myself and even some non-Jews for ‘anti-Semitism’.  They have lobbied, pressurised, campaigned and of course briefed their friends in the Tory press.  It’s almost as if no one reads the Daily Mail in the Labour Party.

And then what?  None of it has made a blind bit of difference because the Labour Party conference swung to the Left.  What was the point of that £1m slush fund for Joan Ryan MP if nothing has changed?  Why Newmark even overcame his distaste for the Left and befriended and flattered Jon Lansman, the property millionaire owner of Momentum.  Ok he’s not that much to the left for you and me but to Newmark he is a raving communist. 

Newmark even fooled Lansman into thinking he was a socialist-Zionist of the Mapam stripe. (for those who don’t know Mapam, although Zionists, have tended to support certain basic civil liberties for Arabs in Israel – today they are part of Meretz and clinging onto a presence in the Knesset).  In fact Newmark goes along with the Occupation, house demolitions the lot.

To make matters even worse, first Free Speech on Israel held a meeting at Monday lunch time which was packed to the rafters and then Jewish Voices for Labour, despite being wet and woolly, held its inaugural rally on Monday evening, also packed to the rafters.  Even worse still two union bosses including Len McLuskey from Unite, attend pledging support.

LRC meeting in Brighton with Jackie Walker

And as if to make this really the Conference from hell, Jeremy Corbyn became the first Labour leader to snub the Labour Friends of Israel fringe meeting in 20 years.  Emily Thornberry, bless her heart, tried to comfort the assembled big wigs, Mark Regev and assorted Zionist nobodies with a tale of Corbyn being hard at work on his speech.  However he was caught on camera having a good time at the Daily Mirror piss up!  When Joan Ryan, Labour’s Tory MP for Enfield North read out a message from Corbyn there were cries of ‘where is he’ ‘why is he not here?’.  You see LFI expects Corbyn to attend to demonstrate they are still a force to be reckoned with.

It was reported that Iain McNicol, Labour’s crooked General Secretary, was given a hero’s reception and quite right too. When all is lost McNicol has always been steady as a rock.  He has been so reliable that it is hard to imagine he doesn’t have a formal relationship with the Israeli and US Embassies.  Paid or unpaid is anyone’s guess.

Rhea Wolfson on Labour's NEC, an AWL sympathiser supported Jackie Walker's referral to the National Constitutional Committee - spoke at the Stop the Purge meeting at LP Conference

Sure enough, when all else fails, then you have to fall back on that tried and trusted weapon, ‘Anti-Semitism’. So it was that Naomi was made the subject of a complaint because she had accused the JLM of running to the Telegraph and Mail.  How dare she say such a thing?  She mentioned Jews, well Zionists, in the same sentence as the press.  That is an ‘anti-Semitic trope’.  As Jamie Stern-Weiner points out the old anti-Semitic myth revolved around Jewish ownership and control of the media not briefing the press, but such a distinction really is being pedantic.  That means she is an anti-Semite and should be suspended if not expelled for her disgraceful speech.  Indeed everyone who stood and applauded her should be expelled for giving their approval although I accept that it might be difficult knowing who stood up and who didn’t (this can be solved by expelling all the conference delegates bar Progress supporters).

At the Free Speech on Israel meeting the Israeli speaker, Miko Peled argued in favour of free speech on Israel and all political issues.  He even mentioned ‘Holocaust yes or no’.  This was enough for the press to invent an allegation that Holocaust denial was the main topic of the meeting!  And because Tony Greenstein was present at the meeting Brighton and Hove Council’s Progress Leader Councillor Warren Morgan called for me to be expelled alongside saying that he wouldn’t invite Labour to hold a conference in Brighton again.  Kinda logical that.  Clearly both of us being Jewish we share equal responsibility for what each of us said in the meeting!  Eat your heart out Uncle Joe!

Tory Guido Fawkes is in full support of the JLM Witchhunt

And the coup de grace?  Well the JLM had been particularly annoyed by a paper that Labour Party Marxists had distributed at conference.  It contained an article by Professor Moshe Machover, an Israeli anti-Zionist and founder of Matzpen, a socialist organisation of Israelis and Arabs.  The article had the temerity to quote the Deputy Chief of the SS, Reinhard Heydrich in 1935 saying how much the Nazis favoured the Zionists as opposed to the ‘assimilationists’ in the German Jewish community.  Now it is irrelevant that this quote can be found in the book of Zionist Professor of Holocaust Studies, Francis Nicosia.  The fact that it is true is also irrelevant.  To repeat such things today is clearly anti-Semitic!  Moshe also mentioned the welcome that the Zionists gave to the Nuremburg Laws of 1935.  Again he refused to understand that things look so very different 80 years later.

So Iain McNicol and his monkey, Sam Matthews hit on the bright idea of expelling Moshe.  Because he is a professor he might cause trouble.  So they ‘auto excluded’ him, which saves the trouble of a hearing, evidence etc.  and after having to write him two expulsion letters, because the first was not clear enough they explained that it was his links with LPM and the Communist Party of Great Britain that was the real reason for the expulsion.

Jon Lansman stages a Coup D’état in Momentum as the National Committee is cancelled by the Steering Committee

The  Long Awaited Founding Conference of Momentum Will Be a Virtual Conference!

Jon Lansman, Momentum's founder is determined not to share power with the membership

Matt Wracks Speech on Momentum at the LRC Conference from Percivale Productions on Vimeo.

In his farewell speech to the House of Commons Tony Benn repeated one of his most famous sayings concerning democracy and accountability.  It is particularly relevant at the present time given Jon Lansman’s coup against Momentum’s membership.

‘In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.’ 

These are the questions we should be asking of Jon Lansman and those on the Steering Committee who voted with him –does your power derive, to whom are you accountable and most importantly how do Momentum members rid themselves of your misleadership?

Jackie Walker - removed as Vice-Chair of Momentum by Jon Lansman and friends despite the overwhelming opposition of Momentum members and branches

On the evening of October 27, Jon Lansman, the sole director of ‘Jeremy for Labour’ company (renamed from Momentum Campaign Ltd in the summer), called an emergency meeting of the Momentum Steering Committee for the evening of October 28 – i.e., with 19 hours’ notice. Some members, such as Matt Wrack and Jackie Walker, were not able to attend at such short notice.  The meeting decided, by six votes to three, to cancel the November 5 meeting of the National Committee which was scheduled to take decisions on the organisation of Momentum’s founding conference in February 2017.   

It was the February National Committee meeting which elected the Steering Committee for the following six months, i.e. up to August.  Therefore what has happened is that Momentum’s Steering Committee, a lower body, has just voted to disallow the higher body from meeting!  Clearly constitutional theory is not Lansman’s forte!   

It also decided that the first Momentum conference should be in the ethernet, a virtual reality conference.  It would have no physical manifestation.  There would be no meeting hall, no delegates, no debates, just an atomised membership who  would vote on the different proposals put before them.  And who would decide the structures that allow such a vote?  Well you guessed it.  The same Jon Lansman and his coterie who have decided that, come what may, they can’t be removed.  Hence why Momentum’s Companies are in the sole name of Lansman, who is sole director.

Since the National Committee elected the Steering Committee it is unconstitutional for the latter body to effectively abolish the body which elected it.  It recalls the famous poem "Die Lösung" (The Solution) of Bertold Brecht after the workers’ uprising in East Berlin in 1953:

After the uprising of June 17th

The Secretary of the Authors' Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

Which said that the people

Had forfeited the government's confidence

And could only win it back

By redoubled labour. Wouldn't it

Be simpler in that case if the government

Dissolved the people and

Elected another?

In an email issued by Momentum to ‘key people’ “in local groups the decision was justified by the fact that “some Momentum members, groups and regional network meetings had raised concerns about the organisation of the 5 November National Committee meeting, the process leading up to it and democratic representation and participation for Momentum members more broadly”.  We are not told who these people are nor what were their concerns were.  Still less were we told whether they had called for the NC not to meet.

If it is true that people had concerns about the November NC then this is entirely the fault of the self-same committee that is now shutting down our democracy altogether.   This body gave branches and regional committees almost no time to meet and discuss proposals for the conference or to choose delegates for the November 5 meeting. In fact, most members have not even seen the various proposals on the future of Momentum and how the conference might be run.

One member, one vote

Lansman also pushed through a motion which stipulates that the conference must be organised via a system of “online voting for all members” – the full 20,000 of them! The merits or otherwise of the various forms of representation for the conference was to be decided by the November 5 National Committee which has now been conveniently cancelled.

An excited email sent to all members on 29^th October from Momentum centrally informs us that, “Over the coming months, members will propose their ideas on Momentum’s aims, ethics, and structure. We will use digital technology to ensure that all members can be involved and shape Momentum’s future.”

This is the very opposite of democracy. It is designed to atomise individual members and undermine conference as the collective decision-making body of Momentum. It underlines the extent to which sections of the left have internalised the defeats of the past decades.  It is Thatcher’s union ‘reforms’ writ large.

To add to the confusion, it is unclear precisely what Lansman and his allies are actually proposing. Jill Mountford takes a guess that “it seems what they mean is that delegates to Momentum conference will not take any decisions but votes will instead be taken by an online ballot of all members afterwards.  This is bizarrely reminiscent of Blairism, bureaucratic manipulation veiled in plebiscitary pseudo-democracy.”

This is worse than anything Tony Blair managed to foist on the Labour Party. How can we ever again gripe about the bowdlerising of Labour Party conference democracy if we acquiesce to the travesty that Jon Lansman and his cohorts are trying to foist on to us? 

We are still in the dark as to how motions might be proposed to conference. The original Lansman plan required an initial 50 signatures for a motion to progress further. After several more hurdles had been vaulted, 1000 signatures would be required for a motion to be heard by conference. Many branches and regional committees have criticised this, calling for the threshold to be lowered. It is very likely that the National Committee meeting of November 5 would have overturned restrictive stipulations like these and challenged many more of the plans of Lansman and co. 

Clearly it is much better to just stop the NC from meeting at all!  On 29^th October I received the following email, as did other Momentum  members.  It is a classic example of deception dressed up in the language of false bravado.  I omit the final flowery paragraph:

Dear Tony,

Momentum has had a big first year. We’ve established over 150 local groups across the UK, run national campaigns, formed the backbone of Jeremy’s incredible second leadership campaign - and now we have over 20,000 members.

Momentum helps the Labour Party to become a more open, democratic and campaigns-focused organisation. We need to be member-led ourselves. You must decide the future of your organisation.

Yesterday, Momentum’s Steering Committee voted to start the process of ensuring that Momentum becomes a truly democratic member-led organisation, reflecting the new kind of politics.

Over the coming months, members will propose their ideas on Momentum’s aims, ethics, and structure. We will use digital technology to ensure that all members can be involved and shape Momentum’s future. This process will culminate in our first national conference, with online voting for all members, in February.

In solidarity,

Team Momentum

It is a classic in Orwellian hyperbole and double think.  It talks about a member led organisation when the proposals from the SC are designed to achieve the exact opposite.  The decision of the SC to distribute the arguments of those opposed to these proposals were conveniently overturned as Lansman fondly imagines that if he doesn’t distribute them people won’t oppose know about them!  Dictators far more intelligent than Lansman have harboured similar illusions!  Momentum groups are up in arms, not only about this but the removal of Jackie Walker as Vice-Chair.  

The Statement Below is a precis from Labour Party Marxists

The last 48 hours have seen all hell break lose in Momentum.  It is essential that Momentum members and branches hurry messages and resolutions into Momentum centre to condemn this latest attempt to shut down democracy in the organisation. 

At the heart of what has happened lies a deep, morbid distrust of the members and democracy. As SC member Jill Mountford put it in her report: “Sam Wheeler and Jon Lansman spent far too much time arguing that local groups and the regional committees were undemocratic and unrepresentative.” 

Momentum branches are forbidden to send emails to all Momentum members in their area. All communications must be routed through Momentum nationally, presumably so the content can be vetted.

·         Momentum branches have been told not to bring their members together in constituencies and wards to work to maximise their political impact in these geographical units of the party. This makes it very hard to effectively cohere the Labour left in these locales. The official reason for this restriction is that the Labour Party does not allow the affiliation of organisations with a ‘mirror' structure, as the rule book dubs it. But then, Momentum is not affiliated to the Labour Party, it is not a party. Its members should be working together in cohesive units, sharing experiences and discussing in their democratic local forums the direction of their national organisation. 

·         Apart from sending out insipid campaigning news, the Momentum leadership does not communicate with its members. There are no minutes, no reports, no agendas of the organisation’s committees. Some “key contacts”, as they are dubbed, in some branches sometimes receive a little information. A few of these comrades forward this intel to some other people some of the time. In effect this has helped to create local cliques that monopolise key information. The vast majority of Momentum membership have no idea of who runs their organisation, what decisions they take and how. 

Momentum’s claim to represent some sort of clean “new kind of politics” is starting to look very much like the old type of politics – decisions taken before  meetings have even convened, a disregard of basic constitutional principles, an existing clique trying to preserve its own power.  In fact the  behaviour of Jon Lansman, Sam Tarry and co. seems to resemble nothing so much as the behaviour of Iain McNicol and Tom Watson.   They are the very antithesis of democratic socialism.

The London Momentum regional committee on October 29 voted by 31 to 0 (with 2 abstentions) for the following motion.  For a Report see here

This meeting of the London Momentum Regional Committee censures the National Steering Committee for cancelling the meeting of the National Committee that was scheduled for 5 November and agreeing a method of organising the national conference without waiting for the National Committee to discuss it.

We do not recognise the legitimacy of the Steering Committee to make these decisions. We call for these decisions of the National Steering Committee to be rescinded and for the NC to proceed as originally scheduled on 5 November.

 

2) The Labour Representation Committee:  

LRC national conference  passed this resolution at its October 29 conference:

LRC AGM condemns the decision of yesterday's Momentum SC to cancel the scheduled NC for 5th November and its decision to abandon a delegate conference in February.

3) Model motion from Labour Party Marxists:

This meeting condemns the decision by a hastily convened emergency meeting of the Momentum Steering Committee on October 28 to cancel the November 5 meeting of the National Committee. This NC was scheduled to decide the organisational details of our first national conference in February 2017.

Important decisions on the future of Momentum should involve as many members as possible. Six people on the national Steering Committee (a body that was supposed to be re-elected in August 2016) have decided to stop branches and regional committees to have their say on the future of our organisation.

We call for the National Committee meeting, re-arranged for December 10, to go ahead. It must discuss and make decisions on all issues pertaining to the organisation of our conference, including voting arrangements, delegate credentials and ratios, the future composition of the National Committee, etc.

 Jill Mountford who is a member of the Momentum Steering Committee has blogged on what happened at the meeting of 28^th October because of course Lansman and co. would not dream of distributing minutes or a report of the meeting.

Momentum Steering Committee cancels 5 November NC, but we win vote for new date (including who voted how)

* For cancelling 5 November: Jon Lansman, Darren Williams, Sam Tarry, Marsha Jane Thompson, Christine Shawcroft, Sam Wheeler.

Against: Jill Mountford, Michael Chessum, Cecile Wright.
Abstaining: Martyn Cook.

** For calling a new NC in December: Darren Williams, Martyn Cook, Cecile Wright, Jill Mountford, Michael Chessum, Christine Shawcroft.

Abstaining: Jon Lansman, Marsha Jane Thompson, Sam Wheeler, Sam Tarry.

I must confess to being surprised by the vote of Christine Shawcroft who is part of the split in Labour Briefing.  She voted for the removal of Jackie Walker as vice-chair of Momentum but I took that to be  because of bad blood between the groups.  This vote is inexplicable. 

Another member of the Momentum Steering Committee, Michael Chessum, explains his vote against Lansman’s proposals.

‘What do you call it when an executive votes to abolish the legislature?...

Momentum's steering committee met tonight in a meeting that was called with less than a day's notice, ostensibly to consider delaying the National Committee meeting which was due to meet on November 5th. I went to the meeting prepared to oppose the move (it's already 6 months since our democratic structures met) and expected to find myself in a minority. The NC was due to discuss (among other things) the composition and processes for Momentum's February conference, which would in turn decide our structures. In advance of it, local groups and regions had patchily met to discuss various proposals.

But my initial concerns were blown out of the water. Instead, the meeting not only voted to postpone the NC to December, but to bypass the NC entirely and make the decision that Momentum's conference should effectively not happen (instead being a live streamed national gathering), and momentum's structures decided by e-ballot. This was in a meeting called with 19 hours notice.

A lot of this was justified with an attitude of "it can't possibly be undemocratic to let all members vote, so pack up your deliberative structures and democratically agreed processes". Now I don't know about anyone else who's been around the Labour movement for more than 5 minutes, but I've heard that strain of logic before - and i dont mean from the left.

Now even if you think that literally all of the organisation's decisions should be taken by OMOV (personally I favour a mixed system with both OMOV and delegate meetings; but I can quite see how with a complex conference structures debate you might want a delegate debate rather than an atomized online vote), but whatever your view, this is just an outrageous, farcical way for that decision to be made.

Momentum is fantastic - and so are many of the people who frankly found themselves on the wrong side on this - but I really worry about the left sometimes, and how some bits of it have absorbed the modus operandi of blairism during the wilderness years.

Jackie Walker has also issued a statement:

"I am making a statement on the working of the Momentum Steering Committee.

Up till now, despite others commenting freely, and often in an uninformed way, I have agreed to be silent. However, events of the last few days have changed this.

'Almost immediately after the Jewish Labour Movement began to tweet against me after the training event, a 'senior member' of Momentum joined in, briefing the press, in particular a Guardian journalist, Joan Elgot. Interestingly those tweets have since been removed, though screenshots have been taken. This was very soon followed by full articles, both in the on-line and paper version, which said "The Guardian understands her removal from the post is likely to be confirmed when the committee meets on Monday. A spokesperson for the left wing grassroots movement, which was set up to support Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the party, confirmed members wanted her to go." I was also informed by the Guardian, as were others on the Steering Committee, at the same time as the Guardian Leadership, the date and outcome of the meeting to remove me. Included in this same article were comments by Manuel Cortes, Gen Sec of the TSSA, threatening to remove Momentum from TSSA premises if I were not removed. This came, I believe, soon after Cortes had publicly called me a rabid anti-Semite, or something to that effect.

While the press may have known when the meeting to remove me would be, as well as the result, I was given only 48 hours notice of the hearing and no details either of how it would be run or what the charges were against me, despite repeated requests. The extraordinary spectacle of a group of trades unionist treating a comrade in a way THEY would not accept had they been representing me as trades unionist was shameful to our movement. No statement was taken from me or from anyone who had been at the JLM training event. The irony is the SC used evidence from the same media sources that had recently condemned Jeremy as an incompetent, an antisemite and a terrorist.

After this kangaroo court, I asked for a complaint of this process to be forwarded to the NC and for an investigation to be launched about the leak. A meeting of the SC voted against giving me access to the NC. I know who leaked, as do many people on the SC.

As to the most recent example of the lack of democracy of the SC, on Thursday at 10:30pm I received a notification of an emergency SC meeting. There was no mention of a discussion on how the conference would be run. A number of people could not make, or would not agree to come to such a meeting. A number of people, including myself and Matt Wrack, protested as to undemocratic process. Some members agreed to phoned in. Imagine my shock the next morning at being informed both that the NC was to be postponed and that the decision had been made by the SC that conference votes would be made on line. This occurred even though at least 2 papers were outlining different process of voting at conference had been tabled for discussion at the (now cancelled) NC.

The sovereign body is the NC. The SC is there to implement their decisions. This is an outrage.

The two examples I describe here are just the most well known of a general culture of disdain which too many members of the SC have supported. It is crucial that this changes.’