Momentum enters 'phase two’ of its project at The World Transformed festival

'Post-general election we are now in phase two - now it’s about building a mass social movement to shape and reform the entire community and social system'

Jeremy Corbyn speaking at Momentum's The World Transformed festival in Brighton (Getty)

“Digital labourers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your data,” is the message painted on the wall of the Synergy Centre in Brighton, a former Hed Kandi nightclub that is due to be demolished next week for a 133-room hotel. The building’s last function was hosting The World Transformed – Momentum’s festival running parallel to Labour’s official conference for a second year.

Held across nine different venues in the city, The World Transformed events included a pub quiz hosted by the former Labour leader Ed Miliband – featuring team names “Notorious CLP” and “the Miliband Tendency”. Others involved clay sculpting, a conversation with Russell Brand on addiction with the Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth, and a dissection of why pundits’ Mystic Meg abilities were not up to scratch in the recent snap election. On the penultimate evening of the festival activists also displayed some flamboyant dance moves in a church turned art gallery, under the provocative name of “acid Corbynism” - organised in memory of Mark Fisher, who had been working on a book that was to be named Acid Communism.

“Dance music has always been an antagonist to the individualist, isolationist tendencies of British society over the past few decades, and hearing people discuss how collective forms of creativity and experimentation can alleviate those tendencies was great,” one attendee said. “Also, having a drink and a dance can only improve what 'doing politics’ entails.”

As was the case last year, Jeremy Corbyn memorabilia flew off the stalls. It was even possible to purchase tins of “the shaving cream Corbyn never used” with a sketch of the leader who has won Parliament’s Beard of The Year competition seven times since 2001.

Around 30 MPs and a dozen Shadow Cabinet ministers spoke at fringe events and the “absolute boy” made two appearances at the festival – naturally welcomed by the now-familiar chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” to the tune of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army. In a fiery speech to activists, he told the 500-strong crowd that “Momentum’s campaign was so important in the election”. His long-time ally, John McDonnell also made an appearance, claiming Labour had been running war games in the event of a run on the pound should the party win the election. But before the Shadow Chancellor got to his feet one volunteer walked past delegates with a bin-bag. “Anyone have any rubbish,” he asked. “Progress leaflets?”

(EPA/Neil Hall (EPA/Neil Hall)

It was clear Momentum and colleagues at The World Transformed had time to prepare for its second festival at Labour’s conference in the absence of a summer leadership contest. Over 4,000 attendees downloaded the organisation’s app, allowing activists to create their own schedule from the 123 events held over a four-day period. The app also sent alerts to delegates for key votes, when events were at capacity and reminded them that limited tickets were available for Momentum’s end of conference rave. Unlike 2016 the hard-working volunteers who controlled the snakes of queues attempting to get into most of events actually slept in a hostel – rather than a six-foot by six-foot “press room”.

Speaking in the Grand Hotel – infamously bombed during the 1984 Conservative conference – Adam Klug, a national organiser for Momentum, reflected on the four-day event. “There’s a collective feeling of confidence that we’re on route to something transformational – on route to government,” he said.

“I kind of see it that we’ve jumped over a number of hurdles, one after another, and we’ve reached a plateau and we now have a massive hill left to climb – to win the next election.”

Klug claimed there was far less tension between the main conference and the festival in Liverpool last year. “There’s much more of a sense of collective purpose,” he added. It’s a fair point. Twelve months’ ago, the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock described Momentum as a “parasitic” organisation with its own policies and purposes, “leeching” on the party he led between 1983 and 1992. Arch Blairite John McTernan added: “The idiots in Momentum will destroy themselves before they destroy Labour.”

Today, Kinnock is silent on the issue and McTernan is a Momentum member.

As Dawn Butler, the shadow women and equalities minister, told one fringe event: “What a difference a year makes. I mean, the World Transformed. Last year at the Labour party conference it was a really different atmosphere. There was no fun. You couldn’t even use Momentum in a speech because there was some sub-coded kind of message.”

Many young Corbyn gathered in Brighton for the Labour Conference and World Transformed Festival (Getty)

But there still remains a degree of suspicion that lingers around between some MPs and the organisation, largely over the resurrection of mandatory reselection – a rule that once forced Labour MPs to seek the endorsement of their constituency party once in every Parliament. While it’s not a policy actively advocated by Momentum, Labour MP Chris Williamson, a Corbyn ally, told one event at the fringe festival on winning marginal seats that he believed mandatory reselection, abolished by Kinnock, should be brought back.

“If you think about it no other election position in the country has a job for life,” he said. “So why should MPs be any different?”

“This party belongs to the membership not to the 260-odd members of Parliament. They represent the PLP at the moment – 0.04 per cent of the total membership. And with the membership continuing to rise that proportion is diminishing. This party belongs to members and we should give it to our members to determine the future, to determine who they want to represent them and the country, their constituency in Parliament.”

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For Klug and other senior people in Momentum the organisation has now stepped into a new era – or “phase two”. As the Labour MP Clive Lewis explained during one event, Momentum before the general election, was the “Praetorian Guard for Jeremy Corbyn” but after he “kicked some arse” on 8 June he now believes the leader doesn’t need the same level as protection.

The mission of the organisation now, as Klug explains, is using its data, developing its technology to mobilise its foot soldiers to get Corbyn into Downing Street. “Post-general election we are now in phase two,” he added. “Now it’s about building a mass social movement to shape and reform the entire community and social system.”

And as Andrew Dolan, another organiser of the World Transformed, explained, this year’s festival also had an “edge of seriousness”.

“With the widespread acknowledgement that the ideas debated in the nightclubs, churches and town halls across Brighton could soon be turned into policy," he added.

Donning a black and pink-stripped suit jacket, Jon Lansman had a stride in his step as he entered the Synergy Centre yards away from the seafront on the second day of the festival. “There’s none of that pent up anger that was around last year,” he said with a beaming smile. It’s hardly surprising: Lansman spent nearly three decades with comrades wandering the political wilderness and is now one of Labour’s most influential figures as founder and chair of Momentum – set up in the wake of Corbyn’s first leadership victory in 2015.

Momentum founder and chair Jon Lansman (Rex)

But he also has another reason to be jubilant. Momentum had just flexed its muscles and demonstrated its ability to essentially whip its subscriber base to vote in a certain way in the main conference hall. Two key issues went the organisations preferred way: Brexit didn’t appear in the eight motions to be debated on the conference floor and Labour’s rule book now only requires 10 per cent of MPs to vote in a leadership contest – instead of 15.

While the former saved the party’s leadership a likely embarrassing debate yards away at the main conference, the latter is essential for Momentum’s future. The rule change - dubbed the “McDonnell amendment” by critics – essentially makes it easier for a left-wing candidate to get on the ballot in a Labour leadership contest. The veteran left-winger Lansman was one of those gathered outside the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) office in June 2015, as Corbyn scrapped past the line of 35 MP nominations needed to stand in that year’s contest. That bar has now been lowered. And Lansman is quite clear he wants it to be lowered again – to five per cent.

Despite signs of a Corbyn “cult” - notably a framed portrait of the Labour leader decorated in fairy lights and tinsel – it is a fundamental misreading of the organisation. Momentum – expecting to boast 30,000 members by next week – is there to support Jeremy Corbyn’s style of left-wing politics, not solely the man himself. It was quite clear during the snap election campaign the organisation had considered contingency plans for the Theresa May landslide government that now resides in some alternate universe. Endorsed by the radical left-wing intellectual Noam Chomsky, the organisation, Klugg added “is a growing one that is here to stay”. Should Corbyn decide to step down before the next election, Momentum will undoubtedly throw its powerful caucus behind another candidate – and that candidate will likely be the immediate frontrunner.