Momentum To Take No Position On Brexit At Labour Conference
labourlist.org/2018/09/momentum-to-take-no-po...
labourlist.orgPosted Sep 2, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC
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labourlist.orgWhat is the point of Labour.
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TBF Momentum =/= the Labour Party.
Not every Labour member is a Momentum member, but every Momentum member is a Labour member.
Labour has 552,000 members.
Momentum has 40,000 members.
The union Unison, for comparison, has 1,377,006 members, many of which will be contributing to Unison's political action fund (which supports Labour).
In addition, many Labour MPs are actually "Labour and Co-operative" MPs, because they are backed by an electoral Alliance between the Labour party and the Co-operative party.
Policy is discussed at the National Policy Forum. But the final say on policy is held by the Parliamentary Labour Party leadership... in other words, Jeremy and his team.
If the unions don't like what Labour is up to, they can (and do) threaten to pull the plug on funding.
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every Momentum member is a Labour member.
That's not even true, I don't think. They're not officially affiliated. That's also why they've previously had their own issues with entryism - people banned from joining Labour were taking positions of responsibility in Momentum instead.
(edit: at least this used to be the case, not sure anymore)
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Under the constitution introduced in January 2017, Momentum activists must also be or become members of the Labour party.
I read this from Wikipedia.
But now that you mention it, I don't know if members are considered activists or whether this only applies to a special "activist" class of members (assuming activists are members and not just a kind of non-member employee).
Edit: Ok, I bothered looking at the citation. It seems like activists = members.
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ah, ok. I'm way out of date, then.
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What is the point of Momentum...
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Utterly pathetic. Tory whips must LOVE momentum because ironically, they've never had any.
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Fucking useless. I'll never forgive Labour or the Tories for this shit show.
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So you’ll vote lib-dem at the next general election? I know I will be.
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No I'm a Green voter. Only voted for Lib Dems once and they got into bed with the Tories as a result.
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Can’t see that happening again though. I’ve forgiven the LDs despite them screwing up my education, on the basis both labour and Tories have committed far greater atrocities in the past few years.
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To be honest labour won my seat with around 40k votes with the rest of the parties getting >7k votes each so don't think anyone else will be getting in here anytime soon and ultimately I agree with Green policies more than Lib Dem. So my vote is somewhat irrelevant.
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Labour are very much under new management. The Lib Dem’s aren’t.
Corbyn opposed the Iraq war, etc.
Cable hasn’t apologised for the estimated 120,000 people (according to research in the BMJ) who’ve died as a result of austerity.
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Because of course it is Labours fault, they are the ones who wooed the UKIP vote saying we should have a Referendum, they are the ones who had key members campaign to Leave the EU even though they didn't even believe it, they are the ones who are pushing through hard brexit to trash the country.
Oh wait no...that is the Conservatives, Labour literally don't have the power to change a Bus timetable, because they don't have a majority of MP's in the house of commons, it is irrelevant what they think, they can't do shit anyway, and there is no general election for it to be relevant for them to have a stance on pretty much anything.
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Miliband's infamous Immigration Mug and Corbyn's speeches about foreign workers driving down British wages had nothing to do with wooing UKIP voters?
Corbyn's '7 out of 10' referendum campaign, during which he refused to cooperate with other parties (even those to the left of most of his MPs) and took a holiday in between had nothing to do with his lifelong record of hostility to Europe?
Corbyn's demand that Article 50 be triggered even sooner than it (absurdly precipitously) was, his plainly impossible unicorn deal proposals, and his three-line whips in support of Tory Brexit policy had nothing to do with supporting a hard Brexit?
The Tories may indeed have started this fire, but Labour has heaped fuel upon it with aplomb. You may wish it weren't so - I know I do - but this is the situation with which we're faced.
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Corbyn was attacking company owners for using immigration as an excuse to drive down wages.
What about the Lib Dems enabling austerity, that has been directly linked with the Leave vote?
Scottish Labour happily campaigned with the Tories in the 2014 independence referendum and were destroyed for it.
You can’t be a socialist and fully support the EU (that’s not saying you can’t support a Remain vote, as Corbyn did, only that the EU is decidedly not a socialist endeavour).
Brexit is a Tory civil war between their nationalists and their (free market) Liberals.
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It's true that Corbyn rightly criticised unscrupulous company owners. But the fact remains that he did so by repeating the Faragist canard that foreign workers impoverish us. Miliband, as I've said, was even more brazen in courting nativist sentiment.
Your point about Scottish Labour doesn't explain why Corbyn spurned repeated offers of cooperation with the Greens, Plaid, and the SNP during the Brexit campaign. I'm struggling to see its relevance to his lacklustre campaign, to be honest.
I'm also struggling somewhat with your assertion that socialists can't support the European project. Many socialists in Britain and across the continent do support that project - voters, party members, activists, and theorists. There are a great many socialist MEPs in the European Parliament, too. It's true that the EU is not a purely socialist project - though then again what is? - but this in no sense either erases its socialist elements, negates the efforts of socialists within it, or explains Corbyn's long-standing opposition to it. Unless the only true socialist is a Bennite, of course: a very silly view which I have heard from since of Corbyn's less thoughtful cheerleaders on reddit but which I don't for a moment assume you share. (I don't know if you remember, but during the Delors era the British right were all convinced that the EU is a socialist plot!)
It's true that Brexit is a Tory civil war. But it's a Labour civil war, too - and not one whose battle-lines are so simply drawn as 'socialists vs Blairites'... Most Labour members and voters are more pro-European then The leadership., For a start - and not because they're all 'centrist dad melts'. The whole country is divided, and while I dearly wish the division were limited exclusively to Tory ranks the fact is that it simply isn't.
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You've got Stockholm syndrome mate.
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So much like Corbyn: unwilling to commit to a firm answer on Brexit. It's no wonder they admire him so much and vice versa.
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If he was forced to give a firm answer we probably wouldn't like it
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Cowards
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Fucking cowards.
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Is it so they can yell at everyone rather than just half of 'em?
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Schrodinger's Brexit.
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Brexit is the Tories problem.
We are never going to crash out.
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A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. HA ha ha ha ha. Ha. ha.
Oh this is good... didn't this exact same thing happen last year too?
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The reason for this is despite a large chunk of our membership being anti-Brexit is that Brexit is now considered a wedge issue claimed by the Labour right so people don't want to risk the lefts supremacy in the party.
If you make it a choice between supporting a second referendum and supporting Corbyn then the latter is going to win out. I did predict this outcome weeks ago to toot my own horn.
Had the Labour Right the sense, and the political acumen, to treat the topic in a non-factional way and reach out to the actual members of Momentum instead of calling them rats, dogs, scum etc then they'd probably have won this. There was near unanimous support for it in my Branch 2-3 months ago.
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Same as Corbyn. His latest interview was summed up as:
"Do you specifically like cats?" "Pets are nice" "But do you like cats?" "Lots of people have dogs and cats" "But do you like cats?" "My best friend has a cat" "But do YOU like cats?" "Cats were very important to the ancient Egyptians" "Yes, but do you like cats?"
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As a group that claims to represent "the many, not the few" this is the most pathetic response they could have gone for on the issue that will most affect the ordinary people of the country for years to come. They should be demonstrsting in the street against it every single week if they are truly standing up for what is best for the ordinary men and women of the country.
Such an display of cowardice and abrogation of supposed duty hasn't been seen since Francisco Schettino legged it off the Costa Concordia.
To quote their favorite Labour leader: "weak, weak, weak."
EDIT: Typo
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What did the “many” vote for again?
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the issue that will most affect the ordinary people of the country for years to come.
Not even close to true
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Bloody cowards!
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Of course they won’t, staying true to their core. I’ve never trusted them and think they are bad for labour.
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Utter fucking Cowards.
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But I thought that Momentum were going to force Corbyn to support a second referendum? Any day now...
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Radical idea; maybe they believe that there are more pressing issues than leaving the EU.
Maybe the kind of people who want to see Corbyn in power see that having the opposition oppose Brexit means that whatever happens will allow the Government to blame Labour, if it goes badly it'll be because of Labour stymying, if it doesn't happen it'll be because Labour blocked it, and if it does happen it'll be in spite of Labour's attempts.
Maybe the people in Momentum care more about seeing a proper left wing PM than they do about Brexit.
Maybe, just maybe, Brexit is lower down on our priority list than fixing housing and wage stagnation and stopping the creeping privatisation than the NHS.
And maybe we see that to fix all these things, we need to let the Tories fucking hang themselves.
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Do you not think that housing and wages (and human rights, environmental rights, etc.) will not be affected by Brexit? It is literally the most important thing facing the country atm. It will domino into all other issues. It's also a massive distraction from real issues, if it gets sorted quickly and positively then other things can become a priority.
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Do you not think that housing and wages (and human rights, environmental rights, etc.) will not be affected by Brexit?
Not nearly as much as they'd be effected by the continuation of a Tory government.
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I don't know about that, I think Brexit empowers the right and can damage us beyond the last 8 years of Tory rule.
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It empoyers who ever is in government. Right now that means the right, but the left will be in power soon.
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They will. I also don't think the country is going to literally be a mad max post-apocalyptic hellhole and, like all things, we'll make do. The country won't be worth as much but that money's going nowhere but straight into the hands of private investors so who cares.
It is more important to get someone properly left wing elected. This is about more than money. It's about shaping how what money we have gets spent, and ensuring that we draw a line in the sand and say "no further back from here."
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I don't think it's all about money and will only affect the rich/middle class. I think Brexit will be apocalyptic for working-class people and any proper left-wing government will be spending more time picking up the pieces than being able to focus on a progressive agenda. I also think stopping Brexit is about saying no to xenophobia and racism, something any legitimate left-wing government should prioritise.
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I think it's mostly that most of their policy platform is impossible as an EU member.
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There's no doubt an element of that, for sure. But I believe their policies are good. So if we have to leave the EU to do it, so be it. If we could have stayed in and rewritten the rules, that would have been better, but at this point, a properly left wing government is more important.
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There's that principled stance that we love so much about Labour..... FFS.
Come on, Brexit is a shitshow. At least provide an alternative within the crap confines of FPTP so that there's an option. I know that Jeremy has been a massive Eurosceptic to date, but at least provide some opposition.
Just like Brexit was never clarified before the vote, Labour won't clarify their stance as it means anyone can create their own interpretation of Labour's stance and support that, even though it has no basis in reality.
We need rid of FPTP, we need some actual democracy.
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That vote really was a warning for Brexit. Prevote parts of the no campaign were going around saying AV is crap vote no and you can get something better. After the vote that became twisted into everyone loves FPTP.
AV is barely any different though. That entire referendum was a scam.
Cameron didn't give us PR as an option though. I'm not saying any government soon is ever going to put it to referendum with PR as the choice against FPTP but he cynically only offered the AV system, as there was a genuine wave of public support for true PR after the 2010 election, from left, right and centre.
Blame the Lib Dems for not insisting that the referendum be about PR rather than AV.
The stance with one leg either side of the fence?
It is quite clear the at least the main people in control of the current Labour Party and well and truly for brexit at this point.
The game of playing silly buggers and leaving the Conservatives to self-destruct is over, Labour are just for Brexit. It is time to find another party if you want to stop this shit show.
That said, it is irrelevant, as always due to FPTP the correct strategy is to vote for whichever party is most likely to stop the Conservatives getting into power, if that is Labour, that is who you vote for.
I hate that I agree with you on the state of the country
For what purpose? It's like taking a position on whether men or women are superior. Why would the labour party choose to lose nearly half it's voters in key constituencies?
Listen love, us blokes are clearly superior.
Oh, and Labour want out of the EU.
They are providing plenty of opposition. That isn't altered by the fact that they disagree with you on your pet issue of Brexit.
Having no stance on an issue can be an effective form of opposition. It can allow you to unite people behind something you might judge to be more important.
Brexit will dictate how the UK rolls out for the next few decades. What's more important than that?
More or less everything else. What to have for tea, for a start.
Scones with jam and then cream!