Momentum is not a global movement – it is wacky Socialism in one country

There was a lot of talk yesterday within the Momentum faction of the Labour Party about a “global movement” of the Left that, given time and a following wind, will change the world, making it a happier, more just and altogether better place. It will be a world in which teenagers, pensioners and members of ethnic minorities of all ages (but not anyone earning more than £100,000, except footballers and some television stars) can join hands, confident that, at last, the dictatorship of the underpaid is at hand.

Come the revolution, everybody will live in a four-bedroom semi, with a 64-inch curved TV in the living room and smaller flatscreens in the other rooms, including the toilet. Super-fast internet, that most basic of all human rights (other than, basically, complete racial and cultural integration and a living wage of £35 an hour) will be delivered to every street and hamlet, and the state will reward every child reaching the age of seven with a smartphone, an iPad and lifelong membership of their chosen football club. The Chancellor will also lay down a pipe of lager for newborn boys and a cocktail for the girls, which they will be encouraged to drink on their eighteenth birthday while raising a glass to an even better life for themselves and everybody they know, except for foreigners and the rich.

The NHS will see its budget doubled – no, tripled – and all schools, including Eton, will be given academy status, with 100 per cent of 18-year-olds going to Oxford and Cambridge and pensioners all benefiting from a tax-free, index-linked monthly payout of £3,000 in the provinces and £4,000 in London.  Needless to say, everybody in future, while working fewer hours, will be paid above average earnings.

Moving on from the idealist fantasy that is so central to Momentum, we come to the bit where this latest incarnation of Militant Tendency believes itself to be part of a global movement in which not only teenagers and old-age pensioners join hands, but the people of all nations. They see a world united in its determination to overthrow the system and auger in a new Age of Plenty in which the Rich (who somehow remain rich) pay for everything and Israelis lie down with Palestinians in the Promised Land of Messrs Marx, Engels and McDonnell.

Talk about crazy! Consider what populism means in the twenty-first century. Where do we see it and what has it achieved? And what do populists have in common?

First off, Momentum would say, let’s forget about Castro, Chavez and Mugabe –­ fine men though they undoubtedly were. And don’t even mention Putin, or Erdogan or Viktor Orban. I mean, those guys are only popular in the sense that millions of people voted for them, not because they reflect the will of the people. It’s important not to confuse the two.

Okay. No ogres, then. So who else. Well, in America, there is Donald Trump, who with the support of rednecks everywhere has reduced the prestige of the Oval Office to that of a local branch of the Keep America White Party. It is true that the U.S. in 2018 is richer than ever, but this is not because of Trump, who has assured only that the rich are richer while the poor struggle to pay their bills and skip on healthcover.  No, the U.S. is rich because, presided over by Barack Obama, it largely overcame the financial crisis of 2008-2012 and encouraged the expansion of mega corporations, many of which, like Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon, could not previously have been dreamed of.

America is brilliant, but riven with hubris. Another crash is surely on the way. In the meantime, it is Wall Street and the banks, working hand in glove with big business, that are driving the nation forward, not Trump. Trump is a People’s President in the same way that Mussolini was the popular leader of Italy in 1945, though in the former case it is unlikely that we will see him strung up from a lamppost.

But if not with Trump, to which popular uprising does Momentum see itself reaching out?

Can it be La Liga or the Five Star Movement in Italy – another bunch who look to the Duce for inspiration? Surely not. The League wants to reduce taxes for the wealthy, while Five-Star bases its appeal on anti-immigrant sentiment.

Perhaps the Alternative Für Deutschland, then, or the recently renamed Rassemblement National of France, led by arch-moderate Marine Le Pen and her immoderate niece, Marion Marechal.

Or what about Geert Wilders and the Dutch Freedom Party, or its opposite number in Austria, led by Heinz-Christian Strache. Not entirely to their taste? Then how about the Sweden Democrats, chaired by Jimme Akesson, or, closer to home, Sinn Fein or the DUP? And let’s not forget UKIP, led these days by Gerard Batten, a man so extreme that Nigel Farage shies away from him. If you’re talking populism, these are your guys. They have the support of growing millions of citizens, most of them ordinary folk who used to vote liberal or centre-left.

But no, says Momentum, they mean La France Insoumise, the eco-socialist grouping led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which last year won 17 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly. Or Die Linke, of Germany, which recently moved to make life more difficult for Muslim immigrants in a bid to draw support away from the surging far-right AFD.  Or the Socialist Left Party in Austria, which last time out secured 0.2 per cent of the vote in Vienna. Or even Bernie Sanders, a self-declared Socialist, who, though feisty and shrewd, will definitely not be the next President of the United States.

Momentum as a global phenomenon is a fiction. It is wacky Socialism in one country, and nothing more. If they concentrated their efforts on what is possible, and in so doing restored Labour as a credible alternative government, I would be with them. As it is, the only way forward for Labour is to lose Momentum. But what do I know? I am despicable and should be strung up – except that hanging’s too good for me. Don’t think I don’t know it.