Member memo
We know building socialism is a long-term project. It’s not called the struggle for nothing. But while politics in Westminster is mired in corruption and failing the country, outside the bubble our movement is working hard to lay the ground for a socialist future, building on our first ever public plan, Socialist Organising in a New Era.
It may not always be glamorous but at Momentum we take pride in doing the hard yards to bring about a socialist future. And in tricky times such as these, when political events can change in an instant, we must be ready for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
To do that we need your involvement and support.
Over the last 18 months we’ve done great things together, and if you up your subs we can do even more over the next year:
• We have run successful election campaigns to win the majority of seats on the Young Labour National Committee, the majority of member-elected seats on the Labour National Executive Committee and on the Conference Arrangements Committee.
• We have built an eviction resistance campaign which has seen hundreds of activists across the country target the mega-landlords in their community and demand massive changes to the housing system
• We hosted Momentum’s first ever Policy Primary, which saw over 35 meetings take place across the country to discuss the policies we campaigned for at the Labour Party Conference, and which brought together campaign organisations working on housing, immigration and the NHS, showing Momentum’s vital role in being a bridge between civil society and the Labour Party. The final 8 motions were voted on by 3,000 Momentum members and included a higher minimum wage, social housing and a Green Jobs Revolution – key demands that have the power to unite working class voters across the country, from Hartlepool to Bristol. Many of these motions passed overwhelmingly at Conference in September.
• At this year’s Labour Conference, Momentum led the left’s organising efforts, showing that socialist policies and Party democracy still have majority support among the Labour membership. We:
– Mobilised support against and played a key role in stopping the attempt by the leadership to return to the electoral college for leadership elections.
– Campaigned for and successfully passed a rule change that, in principle, ends the NEC imposition of candidates on local parties for snap elections and by-elections.
– Passed the most popular policy our members backed in the Policy Primary – £15 an hour min. wage. Also passed a Socialist Green New Deal and a Housing motion which advocates building 150,000 social rent homes a year.
– Momentum NCG members talk on various panels at buzzing TWT fringe festival
• We have now run our first Leo Panitch Leadership Programme, which has provided over 40 activists with organising skills, theoretical and strategic knowledge, and a deep understanding of the Labour Party at every level – all of which will help them become the next generation of movement leaders we need to build socialist from the ground up.
• We have delivered the Future Councillors Programme, which has successfully taken over 40 candidates through a 7 week programme to prepare them to stand and win Labour Party selections for council seats, and which will become a central part of Momentum’s work in local government. A number of members that have passed through this programme have since been selected and elected as councillors.
• We have launched a newly rebuilt Councillor Network, which will link up our 250 Momentum/Labour Party councillors, providing them with training and political education and a home to make collective demands locally and nationally. Our next two meetings of the Councillor Network will take place in December.
• Momentum is its members and the organising you do in your communities and workplaces. In the last eighteen months, our local groups have been through a process of renewal, and more power and resources have been devolved to members. Last month we launched our Local Group Funding Pot – money that local groups can use for specific socialist projects.
• We have run multiple Momentum Assemblies as part of Refounding Momentum, in which members deliberate and decide on the constitution, structures and priorities of the organisation. Local groups put forward proposals to the Assemblies which are then fleshed out and expanded into a coherent whole, with members having the final say with a ballot.
• We have initiated a support service for wrongly suspended Labour members, providing expert legal support from a team of barristers and legal students, and pushing back against the Labour leadership’s attack on members and democracy. As part of this campaign we have also organised a series of mass rallies, attracting over 10,000 attendees and bringing together movement leaders on our platform.
• Political education is a key part of Momentum’s strategy. We are currently running a Racial Justice programme, and in 2020 we facilitated a successful three-part trans rights political education programme in collaboration with TWT. We have also run events on:
– Welsh independence
– Community wealth building
– The City and the climate crisis
– Global feminist struggles
– Tenants’ rights
– Sex workers’ rights
• As well as helping to fund The World Transformed, Momentum NCG and local members organised sessions and spoke on various panels at TWT21. Momentum sees its role as doing all it can to assist TWT in building a dynamic yearly gathering for our movement.
• We continue to reach millions and millions of people with our video content, with some videos on the government’s handling of the pandemic getting as many as 14 million views across all platforms. We are the biggest communicators in progressive politics. Our figures for 2021 so far:
• 123M Impressions (FB/Insta/Twitter)
• 24m video views (FB/insta/twitter)
• 18.3m video views (FB)
• 17K Net Follower Growth (FB/Insta/Twitter)
• 8m unique people viewed a video (FB/Insta)