09:24

A t-shirt in support of Momentum, grassroots movement supportive of Jeremy Corbyn Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Momentum, the Labour organisation set up to support Jeremy Corbyn, hailed the results as a success for a superior ground game and campaign techniques deployed for the first time.

The 24,000-strong organisation helped mobilise activists in targeting marginals and exploit social media in support of the overall Labour campaign.

Adam Klug, Momentum’s national organiser, said: “The ground game was crucial to this in terms of mobilising and enthusing activists, many of them first-time canvassers. Momentum played a major part in this.

“I think it is the end of the old way of doing politics.”

While most of the media focus was on Corbyn, Labour was engaged in a largely unseen effort on the ground, using its large base of volunteers as a counter to the Conservatives’ higher spending.

Klug had been a primary teacher when he volunteered in 2015 to work in Corbyn’s first leadership contest and went on to work full-time for Momentum, which grew out of the campaign.

He and his colleagues have not yet celebrated. “We did not win,” said Klug, who said the organisation would continue campaigning, building for the next time.

Labour had won more seats than he had expected. Had all the speculation that Corbyn would have to resign or face another leadership challenge now gone? “I think definitely,” Klug said.

During the election, Momentum developed a tool to help direct volunteers to the nearest marginals: the site attracted 100,000 unique users.



“This was five times the size of Momentum. We reached out way beyond our bubble,” Klug said.

One in four UK Facebook users had viewed a Momentum video in the final week of the campaign, he said. They also developed an app to help people engage in phone-canvassing from their homes or anywhere else rather than go to phone banks.

With the help of about half a dozen volunteers from the Bernie Sanders campaign, it introduced techniques pioneered during the US campaign, with a big effort aimed at training canvassers. Three thousand came to training days throughout the UK, about two-thirds of them first-time canvassers, Klug said.

Momentum asked for volunteers to take Thursday off to get people to the polls. Klug said about 10,000 volunteered, knocking on an estimated 1.2m doors.