By Mohan Sen
Last week I published an article about the first changes socialists should push for in Momentum.
It’s clearly a bit early to judge anything. More soon!
Judging by Momentum’s social media output – a very large part of what it does – change will be a slow process.
Since the new NCG came to office, the basic output has remained the same: generic anti-Toryism apparently calculated to maximise likes, shares and positive comments.
In a very positive shift, the NCG voted to back the Tower Hamlets workers, just as their strikes began. But the Momentum Facebook has only put out one thing, sharing a post from Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsana Begum on 6 July, with nothing since.
On this and in general, Momentum’s Twitter seems a little better. Momentum has retweeted several things about the strike and how to support it. But again, nothing since 6 July, even though the struggle is very much live and more strikes are imminent.
Let us say the Momentum office does not seem overly enthusiastic about supporting the strike.
Meanwhile it has added to its collection of politically bankrupt videos (police as “heroes”, foreigners doing us down through rail privatisation, etc) with a video of Community Integrated Care CEO Mark Adams describing him as a “care worker”.
On a positive note, Momentum has retweeted its new co-chair Andrew Scattergood’s on-the-money statement that while Angela Rayner’s warm words about unions are welcome, “Labour must go further, including adopting the position of repealing ALL anti-trade union laws”. This is the first time Momentum has ever publicly supported this position, despite the NCG agreeing it in 2017.
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