The process by which this has come about has been, for me at least, upsetting on several levels. The best opportunity for the British left in decades has been squandered. In the course of this, people who worked well together at local group level have become enemies: friendships have been broken, bonds of solidarity challenged. The experience has been uniquely unpleasant.
The failure of Momentum both reflects and feeds into a deeper and altogether more catastrophic defeat, namely that of the Corbyn leadership. Weak, and opposed by the greater number of his own MPs, Corbyn strikes a lonely figure on the political stage, undoubtedly making useful contributions, but unable to be effective or command convincing levels of electoral support. The foremost barrier to his leadership was always going to be the PLP, and the best hope of counteracting that effective grassroots pressure on MPs backed up by the threat of deselection. Now that Momentum has turned decisively away from that path, all that remains are appeals to party 'unity' - the brutal truth is that the right don't want unity, but the majority of the left are in danger of humiliating themselves by tacking right in an attempt to achieve it.
If Corbyn is to last and not to be humiliated electorally, the best hope remains with movements outside of parliament shifting political common-sense some way to the left. Perhaps some of the organisation around opposition to Trump's visit could go some way towards this. In any case, I think it is now time for the left to take stock and make a deliberate attempt to learn from its having lost. As I've said before, the things in which we are most lacking are organisation and ideas. If any good comes out the present situation, it will be a renewed attention to these cornerstones of socialist politics.
