 So because of our electoral system, the Labour Party is a coalition of liberals, social democrats, socialists. Now, the leadership right now is justifiably called socialist. And that's a good thing, I think we probably agree, because it reflects the majority of where the party membership is at. Very briefly, what are the politics of momentum? Well, we've got 37,000 members. I imagine the vast majority would call themselves socialists. I think what's interesting about momentum, so there's a lot of political alignment around the basic socialist goals. There may be some outliers who describe themselves a little bit differently as green socialists or ex-anarchists or something. But I think what's interesting is more the how they do politics. So the fascinating thing about momentum is the different political traditions that people come from in terms of how they do their politics. So you've got some died-in-the-wool Labour Party people who've been in the party since forever. You've got people who never joined the party. You've got people who were in the party and left because of Iraq. And then you've got people who've come from a much more movement perspective. The sort of single-issue campaigners, people who've come from, you know, things like UK Uncut, People's Assembly. So what's quite interesting is the different traditions in terms of how they organise and the way that they want to organise within momentum. And that's quite a challenge for us because you've got people who think that a meeting is motions with three minutes and votes. And you've got other people who think that you want to have just broad discursive politics. You've got people who don't want to go to meetings. You've got the online campaigning fraternity. You've got the people who want to pressure the party from without to kind of have come along to momentum but are maybe not completely convinced about the Labour Party itself. Yeah, so I think most would describe themselves as socialists. So following up from that, where does momentum fit in relation to Labour as a coalition? If the leadership is socialist, momentum is primarily socialist. There are many in the Labour Party, I mean Chris Leslie, Chuck Raman are kind of the totemic figures, and they see momentum as exclusively wanting to champion a certain kind of politics at the expense of them. What does that mean? Or are you willing to work with these people? Do you want all of Labour to reflect those politics? Or do you understand that Labour has to be a broader coalition? Well I think because of our party system it will always be a fairly broad coalition. I think the question is not do I think we should work with them? It's do I think they should work with the leadership of the party? I mean the manifesto from last election had huge support. The outliers are going to have to find a way of coming to terms with some of this change. I mean change is really difficult and they're struggling. I always start from the basis that the more the merrier. I mean the reason why we are now looked at by people from across Europe, the states, you know the Canadians have come to talk to momentum, half the political parties in Europe sort of interested in how did we get where we are is because we're huge. So we should never start by trying to limit ourselves. I think we also have to believe that a lot of what we're about is just common sense. I mean whatever label we give it a lot of what we are championing we were told was not possible and it's hugely popular with the general public. Things like bringing the railways back into public ownership. So I think there are elements of the Parliamentary Labour Party who are just behind the curve. I'm confident they'll get there. I'm also confident that in the end if some of them can't reconcile themselves to this slightly more radical transformational vision they'll you know they'll take themselves off. So move on. Yeah. Something like a John Woodcock who previous to the last general election said, I mean and to be fair there aren't many people that radical on the other side of the Labour Party. He said he would never want to get behind the Jeremy Corbyn government. He would effectively try and stop it from the sounds of it. Presumably he would leave the party, he would cross the floor, I don't know. I mean people like that you think they're behind the curve and if they aren't behind the curve they would just move on. Yeah I mean it can't be very satisfying. Right. I mean I generally believe that there are broadly three groups of people in the Labour Party, in the Parliamentary Labour Party. There are the people who are ideologically committed to the broad Corbyn project and there are those who are against. And there are a group in the middle who are finding their feet. Lots of whom I believe weren't opposed to the policies, they just lost their confidence that it could happen. They'd found themselves marginalised, they'd increasingly bought into this story that you know you can't talk about any radical change because it won't win. And I think that June 2017 showed that that was untrue. Those people are now more confident that they can back a more transformational and radical policy. And yes some of the others will, if they're really determined to stay where they are, which I believe politically is in the wrong place. I mean I would, you know, I'd change tack, I'd probably go and do something else. They're obviously welcome for as long as they get elected by the people of their constituents. I mean Tristan Hunt was a kind of celeb before becoming an MP, so it was easy for him but there are a lot of them, they've never been in government, they've never had a big position, they've never been in cabinet. I mean it's hard to see, I won't name names, but it's hard to see where some people might move on and it'll be a serious downgrade for them. So I mean you can envisage people trying to make trouble for the next four years, no? I can envisage a small number continuing to make trouble because as you say they're not sure what else to do with themselves. But I'd also like to believe that the vast majority want what's best for the country, want what's best for the party, are gaining confidence that our policies are gaining in popularity and just need a bit more time to get there before they embrace it fully. I used to work in Bulgaria with children in institutional care and when I worked for a non-government organisation and when we first went to Bulgaria to talk about the fact that you really couldn't have children tied to beds staring at the ceiling for 11 years, we had masses of opposition from the people who worked in these institutions for children and they said, you know, this is the way it is, nothing better can be done for these children. The people who worked in these institutions were pretty institutionalised themselves, they'd been there for 30, 40 years, often in terrible conditions. They knew that in closing down these institutions and finding better alternatives for the children, they'd be out of the job. So their opposition was acute. These were middle-aged people in the middle of nowhere with no alternative job prospects. Within about three years, to a woman, then they were all generally women, all of those people who when we first arrived did everything they could to stop us from trying to change things would have thrown themselves in front of moving vehicles for those children. If people in the most profoundly difficult circumstances who are genuinely facing complete unemployment can change their minds, I honestly believe that we've got to have hope that some of the Parliamentary Labour Party can change their minds. It's just that change is hard. But do you think there are a few of them that wouldn't want to see a Jeremy Corbyn government? Yeah, there are. They exist. There are some. And they can't be persuaded. They probably can't be reconciled to the difference. I think they're a very small minority. You just mentioned the 2017 general election. It was a hung Parliament. Everybody was shocked. I mean, people have probably seen the video from Navarra Towers, us included. I was very confident and optimistic, but I never thought Labour would get above 40%. How decisive were momentum in what has to be the biggest political shock in this country for decades? Yeah, I think momentum played a really big role. I mean, it's hard to quantify exactly. But I think, you know, if you look at the numbers, we had over 100,000 people use the My Nearest Marginal app. Now at the time, there were maybe 25,000 members in momentum. That's a fifth of the Labour Party. On the day of the election, 10,000 people took our election pledge to go polling, volunteer to get people out. We had something like nearly five and a half million people saw one of our films during the election. That was one in three UK Facebook users. Now, what does that really mean in terms of hard outcome impact? I don't know that we can scientifically measure it, but I think it's undeniable, but that is a massive injection of energy, talent, creativity. There are places, I mean, I live just next door to Battersea. And originally, you know, the party machine wasn't really sending people to campaign in Battersea. You know, Battersea was unwinnable. Even on election day. But in the end, a group of momentum members who, you know, including local councillors who were in Battersea basically just saw that nowhere is unwinnable. This is a bold, positive campaign and we're going to go on the offensive. Result, we won Battersea. By a big majority as well, no? 5,000 plus? Yeah, brilliant. And, you know, a great MP who's now in the Shadow Cabinet. So it's fantastic that, you know, that result. Obviously, it's my next door neighbour, so I was very pleased about that. I think also momentum made a difference to the feel of the election. I mean, you're obviously more expert in these things than I am, but there was something about, you know, Jeremy went out on the stump of the members of the Shadow Cabinet. It was real campaigning. It wasn't just some, you know, you saw these awful pictures of the Tory party where they'd have 50 people in suits in the front of some empty hangar and someone would take a photograph from the back and nobody else there. And you couldn't get to the back of Corbyn rallies. You certainly couldn't get to the front, you know. But I was in Gateshead towards the end when people were at three hours in the rain waiting for, you know, a bunch of politicians to pitch up and talk about, yeah, the public ownership of the railways. And a lot of that was momentum members, mobilising friends and family people who maybe weren't momentum members. That must have changed the way that people felt about the election. So do you think momentum, by extension of that, do you think momentum have been a key player in changing sort of general understanding of politics? Because, clearly, increasingly that's what people are thinking about when they think about politics. It's not about some distant state of affairs in Westminster they have no understanding of. I mean, Ian McNichol was trending on Twitter when he decided that he'd be leaving his post over the weekend. So do you think momentum has been very important in this more general shift in the conversation? Yes, I think it's partly that we've pushed it and partly that we've cleverly ridden away. Right. Maybe there was a moment anyway. I mean, I think, you know, it would be really arrogant to suggest that any one organisation, the Labour Party or momentum, you know, were sort of responsible, but certainly a major driver, particularly with with young people, I think, obviously speaking in my capacity as not a young person, but I think all the evidence says that momentum was really successful in getting people out who might not otherwise have tuned into it very much. And clearly in some areas where you've got lots of students, but way beyond that as well, I mean, look at the pictures of any of these rallies. And I think some of the way that we you know, it wasn't a dumbing down it was just making it more accessible like momentum's films are funny like people have, you know, lots of people haven't got much spare time. They don't want to give it to the dry and dusty. They don't, you know, people say it's a struggle, we don't call it a struggle for nothing and it's true, it is a struggle to transform the country, but it doesn't all have to be kind of sackclothed on Ash's either. Do you think there was a big gap between the Labour campaign and the sort of momentum, more Corbyn centric diffuse mode of campaigning where, like you said it's very difficult to measure, very difficult to say who was responsible for what outcomes. But it seemed to me initially at least that until the release of the manifesto arguably, there looked to be two separate strategies and to my mind anyway had the central operation imitated more features of the momentum the Corbyn, the Lotto leader of the opposition operation I think Labour could have formed a government what do you think? I think that's probably right I think we'll never know I think that's a reflection of moving back to where we started, the reluctance of some to fully embrace the Corbyn project there were definitely bits of the party machine that were either oppositional or just slightly stuck in their ways I mean it was quite a bold move to say we're not just going to defend, when the polls are telling you that you're going to get 25% and your strategy is to say well I'm actually not just going to go where we've got an MP I am going to go to Battersea and Canterbury because I think that we can also win you know we can add, not just not lose that didn't sit easy with some of the people in the party clearly how much did you believe the polls there were obviously people in momentum and near to Jeremy who'd had to learn to switch off from what the mainstream media was saying weeks and months before otherwise they'd have given up whereas clearly some of the people maybe in the party machine who were much more focused on what's the mainstream media saying, what are the polls telling us that had quite a chilling effect deliberately I would argue there was a reason why the polls were telling us something that proved to be completely untrue I mean not just margin of error out but way way way out you had to have quite a lot of confidence in your politics to just say you know what I don't believe that so I think you're right to begin with there was a nervousness in some of the central machine and there was just the bold well we've got this far momentum and those close to the leadership had survived you know the shadow cabinet resigning and goodness knows what else and were just determined and that proved to be right there was an element of leap of faith in a way and trusting your gut and the thing that what's really interesting about momentum is that for all the battering in the press people are still trusting their gut like we know that we you know we know that we're right on the politics like we know that we have got to change the country in this way so you're very optimistic what do you make of the media's interpretation of momentum I was actually knocking on the door and went for a candle at Jackie Schneider, she got in, fantastic and one of the people that opened the door they said well my son's a student he's the Labour member, not me you know I don't mind the policies but momentum and this bullying and the Jacob Rees-Mogg stuff and obviously it's not thought through it's grounded in the papers there's an association there, momentum on you know it's kind of student politics Brash, what would you say to those people that have taken this impression from the media about momentum in its politics well I suppose partly you've got a show not tell so if they met me on the doorstep and I was polite and engage them in a sensible conversation about policy issues as I think 99% of momentum activists would maybe that in itself would be half the battle because the problem is that we're being filtered through a media which is 85% owned by the right wing and in the early days some of our own party wasn't really the Labour party wasn't helping very much either I guess I talk about issues like media ownership because I think that lots of the people who've who've heard that where there's great cult or sect or bullying or negative or whatever it might be you know they're not all reading nasty tabloids some of them will have heard this in what are supposed to be perfectly respectable newspapers I guess I talk to them about that you know what else is being filtered out for them I mean as national coordinator of momentum I would also say that you know my inbox is not full of substantiated complaints there is every opportunity for people you know the email is not hidden there's a website there's a lot of fabricated it's pure political manipulation why? clearly momentum's been subject to it far more than any other political organisation in Britain because we're winning the political arguments and it's the oldest trick in the book I mean if you and I now start having a scrap about something sooner or later or you know with your partner or my husband at some point you start attacking the person you're talking to because you know you've lost the argument there's been a lot in the press recently about issues to do with one particular council the argument was lost and so people have retreated to the next level of defence which is personal attack so you think that these personal attacks reflect the fact that some people a certain side a certain view of politics has just lost the argument of policy on austerity on neoliberalism yeah I think it would also be naive to suggest you know there are 37000 people in momentum 200000 supporters or something I probably don't want to find myself stuck in a lift with every single one of those 37000 people you know in there there's going to be an idiot or two now if those idiots or two come to our attention and if there's proof that you know they've done something unacceptable then they are no more welcoming in momentum than they would be in the Labour Party but largely I think it's political manipulation and a lot I really do I say this on Twitter when somebody says there's an anti-Semitism problem in Labour and I respond with the data in terms of when it's been a certain person has been shown to have said X, Y, Z and how quickly the response has been it's actually pretty commendable and I say look if there's a particular person saying something and you can verify that a Labour Party member here's my email address get in touch with me and let's do something about it and I do that and I've never ever ever had a constructive response but largely it's the same for us and I think one of the things I find frustrating is that this doesn't help us deal with the issues where there are issues I mean I was horrified by the stuff that came out with me too because I naively had thought that some of these things had improved in the 20 years since I started working and you know it does the party no service but most importantly it does none of the real issues any it just doesn't get any of us anywhere you know there are issues of racism, homophobia discrimination of all sorts in society and of course then there's the odd idiot in the Labour Party but we don't deal with that by magnifying nonsense So as I've already said Ian McNichol is leaving his post to the party it's an administrative role but it's also a political role in so much as the general secretary is oversight of who's hired who's fired at party headquarters and as the last general election attests that's a very important set of competences to have now I think the general secretary should be democratically elected what do you think? I personally this is a personal view taking your point about competence I think there also has to be some element of like a standard job we do need people who can run budgets, manage staff deal with data protection regulation do the meet and greet charm the donors it's a broad role, it's running an organisation role so I wouldn't want just an election where we ended up with 250 candidates of whom 240 were the wrong people Maybe the NEC would shortlist a certain number of people and they would be chosen by the membership I think that's a really interesting proposal I think that's the kind of proposal that momentum members will come up with in our consultation on the democracy review which the party is currently running it's not the position of momentum because we've not yet got to the end of our democracy review and who knows what the members will say but I think there is quite a bit of pressure from the members to make sure that there's member engagement it definitely has to be a transparent and open process this is a really important job this is the biggest machine of the biggest political party in western Europe we've got 570,000 members we've probably got quite a few in there who would be great general secretaries so whatever we do, however we do it it can't be a rushed job in my view People talk about a Tory momentum in particular, they seem almost infatuated with it anybody can start a Twitter account and they're a Tory equivalent do you think a Tory momentum is even possible because you've said momentum itself is an outgrowth of a certain way of doing politics I think if people think that Activate is about Twitter and social media then yeah, they'll get somewhere but actually it's much more profound than that I mean it's about energising and galvanising people with something different and a really coherent consistent bold political message now I'm not hearing any of that coming out of the Tory party they've got a massive internal wall they're recycling all their old favourite hits I mean we've now got someone who people are talking about as the lead of the party who apparently doesn't believe in a woman's right to choose so do I think that that's going to energise people? probably not I think that they're aiming for young people I mean I'm not qualified really to discuss that but I don't think that most of my young colleagues would think that that was a very exciting proposition I mean they can have a go it would be fantastic I mean I would love to have Activate in momentum debate please organise it I just don't see it happening I think there are laughable attempts in the general election to get crowds of people I mean in the end they had to stop the Prime Minister was completely sanitised wherever she went there were five old flunkies it was all three minutes in come say your piece off you go again but mainly I don't think they're speaking to what young people in particular need I mean they're all over the show on the funding of education they've got nothing intelligent to say about home ownership or even just finding somewhere to live never mind owning it they are they're out of the arc I still think on many social issues I just well yeah I mean never say never but I don't see it happening soon so you've got 37,000 members the Tory party has between 70 and 100,000 members we're not quite sure I suspect it's the former will momentum overtake the Tory party by membership before the next general election if it's in 2022 yes yeah without a doubt I mean we've had 3000 new members joined this year alone I think the way we're going within a couple of years will have overtaken them we continue to grow at the rate that we are at the moment I actually think if there's a snap election we'll overtake them so yeah absolutely very confident I mean they've nothing to offer they've nothing to offer we're offering energy, creativity a new way of doing things a chance to get involved dip your toes a little bit then hopefully get stuck in with your constituency Labour party as well you know we've got networks of people, digital volunteers creative network of volunteers people who come in and volunteer to do the admin people who volunteer because they know about data protection yeah I mean yeah absolutely I mean we'll definitely be bigger Tory party we're nearly bigger than the Green party already we're bigger than UKIP yeah without a doubt