The Labour grassroots organisation is growing so fast it will be bigger than the Tories by 2020. What does its national coordinator make of claims that it is full of Trots and plotters?

On the principle that these are views held by people with whom I tend to disagree, I have always thought Momentum members were probably not thugs and bullies; they were probably not intending to unseat 50 Labour MPs; and they probably did not want to wrest control of the largest leftwing party in western Europe. The lack of curiosity among many commentators – who would take the expertise of the Sunday Times on the inner workings of this satellite of the Labour party before they would do anything as rash as go to a Momentum meeting – has been quite salutary. Yet the principle itself isn’t watertight: it is possible for both a large number of people to lack curiosity and Momentum to be full of Trots and plotters.

This is what has brought me to its office in Whitechapel, east London, which is temporary and cash-strapped, although festooned with hearts for its recent Valentine’s Day phone bank: an interview with Laura Parker, national coordinator, previously private secretary to Jeremy Corbyn. She is the natural poster-person for a different portrait of the organisation: calm, accomplished, amiable. Everybody likes her. The Blairites in her constituency Labour party (Vauxhall) like her. She is known to get on with Stephen Kinnock, which for someone not of his politics, should be listed on a CV under “special skills”. It is hard to establish hierarchies in Momentum, an organisation that both values the phrase “flat structured” and also understands it, but she is the highest ranking staff member, level with Jon Lansman, who leads it and about whom much more has been written.

I realise when I meet her that I have seen her before (I live in the same constituency), outside Starbucks; I say I noticed her because she was talking very fast Spanish (I don’t add that I thought she looked like an unusual person to know a foreign language: very English, twin-setty and quite proper, with a load of dry-cleaning). “My husband’s Italian. We were speaking Italian.” She has quite an exacting gaze. Plainly, while I was congratulating myself on my awesome powers of observation and recall, she was thinking: “What kind of idiot can’t tell the difference between Spanish and Italian?” (She does speak Spanish too, along with French, Romanian, Bulgarian and Brazilian Portuguese, after a career that started in the European wing of the civil service fast stream – “The only good idea Thatcher ever had” – and went on to NGOs in Bulgaria and Italy.)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Badges and leaflets for Momentum in 2016. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty

Two stories have dominated the coverage of Momentum: the Haringey debacle, in which Clare Kober, Labour leader of the council, resigned, citing “sexism, bullying and undemocratic behaviour” of Momentum activists who had “infiltrated” the local party; and that Sunday Times list of 50 MPs whom Momentum were targetting for deselection.

Parker is likable, but she isn’t bland. “I think what was happening in Haringey was about social cleansing [this was one of the charges that upset Kober, that she was called a “social cleanser”]. Whether or not that means a certain individual set out to socially cleanse, maybe not. Maybe we could have a more comradely way of putting it. But I’d argue that Clare Kober left because she lost the political argument. And she lost the political argument because people have understood that we’re not doing housing in the right way. This is not to say that there are no problems in the party, in the Labour party or in Momentum, with the way in which some people behave. But this is life: we have to challenge the status quo, we have to encourage a culture of change.”

There were no formal complaints about any Momentum members in Haringey, she adds. “I read a lot about complaints, but very few, with evidence, actually come in.” Have they had any complaints? “Of course we’ve had some. But so does the golf club when someone goes on to the green with the wrong shoes on.”

On deselections, she pooh-poohs the Sunday Times story but continues – and this won’t reassure Labour MPs who are on bad terms with their local Momentum group: “We call it deselection, what does that really mean? It means that Bill wanted to stand for election, again. And the members decided they’d had enough of Bill and they voted for Tom. It’s called democracy. It’s being packaged up as something sinister. But in my experience, when people start talking about things as sinister or untoward, it’s because they didn’t go their way. There’s this myth building around the dirty tactics of the hard left. It’s not my experience of it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Momentum supporter manning a stall in Ramsgate. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

If they were serious about deselection, the best place to start would be Parker’s own constituency, where the MP, Kate Hoey, is at diametric odds with seemingly every single Labour voter on everything, from Brexit (the highest Remain vote in the country, with an MP who agrees with Nigel Farage) to the Good Friday agreement (it’s “unsustainable”, according to Hoey, and the pinnacle of mature politics to everyone else). Yet all the Momentum energy is going somewhere quite different: building links between the Vauxhall CLP and assorted likeminded civic activists, housing organisations, food clubs, community gardeners (similar work is going on in Lewisham, although the branches vary).

The politic thing would be to disavow deselection altogether, since it’s highly controversial and they are not doing it anyway. But “politic” is just not saying what you think until you have to.

“People wrap themselves up in knots because they’re worried about three words being taken out of context, because they will be. And this sanitises politics, which is a messy business. It’s talking about really difficult problems; it’s dealing with the shitty side of life. It’s recognising all those things that we really don’t want to recognise are true about Britain in 2018.”

Are Momentum “stuffing” Labour’s NEC with their own people? Or are their people being elected because other people agree with them? Is this is a “hard left putsch” or is it democracy in action? A lot of this is a question of manners: any party or organisation should welcome robust debate; no party or organisation should tolerate bullying. A lot of the constituency battles, between the old CLP contingent and the new Momentum members, have been pretty trivial: whether or not to change the seating so that the chairs are in a circle, not in rows, as happened in Dulwich; whether, to have another curry evening, or a screening of Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake.

The idea that Momentum is entirely populated by bullies, and free from debate, is fanciful to me, having met some of them (I also spoke to Mohammed Afridi, who runs finance and business development, and Harry Hayball, head of digital communications; along with some members from Newcastle upon Tyne, before the election). But people are always nice to journalists. It’s like being the Queen and thinking everything smells of paint.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Momentum’s Labour party conference Fringe Festival of Politics in Liverpool. Photograph: Getty

Momentum has 36,000 members. On current growth it will be bigger than the Tory party by 2020. Plainly, it is a political force, but if not for the revolutionary evil with which it’s been credited, for what? “We’re a campaigning group, we’re not about to duplicate the Labour party or set up an alternative policy platform. It’s threefold: in the first place, it’s electoral – we campaign not only to see Corbyn walk down Downing Street, but also to have great quality candidates across the country in the local elections, and then beyond all of that to 2022. Secondly, we’re doing a lot of work on electoral reform, to support Labour as it transforms itself into a more members-driven party. Thirdly, we want to sustain this broader social moment, and that can mean anything: working with trade unions, debates on cultural policy, Acid Corbynism in the World Transformed [Momentum’s fringe event at the party conference]. Ultimately, what the members do will be driven by them.”

And if the members are driving themselves to eradicate moderation with their red-toothed sexist or antisemitic bullying? “We do the victims of sexism, of antisemitism, of racism, of transphobia, a great disservice if we weaponise and politicise these things,” says Parker. “Because it stops us dealing with the real issue. It serves nobody. It’s insulting to have these issues flung around as if they were debating points on the Sunday Politics. They’re much more serious than that.” Then she adds later, mildly: “There are bound to be a few people in the organisation I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with. But I get that at the swimming pool.”

Our conversation takes place just before Iain McNicol departs, leaving vacant the position of general secretary of the Labour party. Briefly, it looks as though Jennie Formby, the Unite candidate, will be a shoo-in, then Jon Lansman and Paul Hilder, social entrepreneur and co-founder of Avaaz, apply, basically to open up the field – they both think the position should be elected – and because a perceived Unite stitch-up would create more unnecessary schism. Because everybody, including the men standing, think the next general secretary should be a woman (and this, right here, is what makes internal Labour politics so hard to follow), Parker finds herself under pressure to apply, but disagrees (over the phone, later) about it being an elected role.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Corbyn at a Momentum event in 2017. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/Getty

“I personally am not convinced, and there are strong arguments against having having an elected general secretary. We need to open up the party, have greater democratic accountability and remember that the staff of the party are there to serve the members and deliver the political project.”

The general secretary, in other words, shouldn’t have a political mandate of their own: they should have the impartiality of a civil servant, and the soul of a campaigner. That sounds a lot like Parker, but when I ask if she’ll apply, she won’t answer. What I hear instead is her frustration, at the fact that ordinary, qualified Labour members – especially women – won’t go for it if they think you need to be a somebody before you’re allowed.

“In 2018, with over half a million members, there has got to be a better way of doing things.”