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Jeremy Corbyn is not about to shut down Momentum.

But he should.

What started as a movement to propel a quiet man to power has become a magnet for violent, unprincipled and self-aggrandising bullies.

They have damaged not only the reputation of Corbyn and forced him into contortions over his beliefs, but are killing the Labour Party.

(Image: Mirrorpix)

There are many members of Momentum who are good and kind. Activists who just want to do their bit to help Corbyn along.

But even the most blind of faith must admit that Momentum is not a political party. It's not a movement or a cause or a religion.

It's a company.

Or rather, three - Jeremy For Labour Limited, Momentum Campaign (Services) Limited, and New Hope For Labour (Data Holdings) Limited.

None of these companies have yet filed accounts so we have no idea if they're making a profit although Momentum membership costs from £5 to £500 a year.

There's also no mention of these firms on Momentum's well-edited Wikipedia page.

(Image: Jeff J Mitchell)

Interestingly the Momentum website refers to itself mostly as "an organisation".

It's thought the "organisation" has about 12,000 members, which can make a nice big crowd to photograph at rallies but bugger all difference in a general election.

Momentum has a code of ethics espousing "participatory democracy", "fair and honest debate", "safety and self expression".

And while I am sure there are among its members any number of decent souls, it's also home to the sort of people who scream abuse, hurl bricks as well as brickbats, threaten, bully and intimidate.

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It doesn't seem to matter to the keyboard warriors that Corbyn's asked them to stop or the code of ethics of their "organisation" says there's no place for it.

Perhaps that's because Corbyn is their friend.

When chief whip Conor McGinn protested at Corbyn threatening to ring his dad, a Twitter account in the name of "Frank Ryan" accused him of being a "traitor" and told him he was no longer welcome in his home town.

For a Northern Ireland boy, that's an obvious and unpleasant threat.

McGinn says the same account had earlier posted a photograph of a meeting with Jeremy and his lawyers captioned "with JC and the core team".

McGinn says Jeremy has refused to explain who this person is or why they were in such a private meeting.

(Image: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

It's people waving Momentum banners who scream at me whenever I write disobliging things about their leader.

Who lurk on hashtags to kick anyone who wants #CorbynOut and who I hope will read further than this, along with all the sane Momentum members who won't believe the abuse carried out in their name.

It's the decent ones who pay £10 for a Momentum t-shirt that cost 30p an hour to make in a third world sweatshop, and the crappy ones - who at best didn't check and at worst didn't care - who were exposed for exploiting some of the poorest workers in the world this weekend.

And it's the vast majority of Momentumites who go to constituency Labour Party meetings and shout down lifelong members for not showing enough loyalty to a party they joined five minutes ago.

(Image: PA)

Labour member Ruth Davies has written movingly of her despair at a CLP meeting where MP Thangam Debonnaire outlined her reasons for resigning from Corbyn's shadow cabinet.

Despite Momentum's code of ethics, representatives of the "organisation", wearing its sweatshop t-shirts, called her a "traitor" and a "conspirator" and said Thangam's achievements - which include being a half-Tamil professional cellist who's written books on domestic abuse and juggled breast cancer treatment with being Shadow Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport - were "irrelevant".

That's not "participatory democracy". It's not "fair and honest debate", or guaranteeing others "safety and self expression".

It's verbal abuse, patronism and inhumane behaviour. It is everything Momentum says it's against yet does not punish.

(Image: Getty)

It's bad enough when it happens in person; when it happens online it's in your most intimate space. When you glance through your phone while on the loo, before you go to sleep at night, the moment you wake up. The barbs get under the skin and stay there.

Labour is many things, but at its best it is a group of individuals who work for what they see as the greater good. It is often so painfully aware of its need to be thoughtful of everyone that it ties itself in knots.

I cannot recall it ever being vicious.

But when lifelong supporters feel they cannot be part of it, when children of migrants are accused of treason and ethics are ignored, then viciousness has entered the bloodstream.

A body born of a wish for the world to be a kinder place cannot cope with well-targeted hate. Unless it is stopped, this parasite will eat its host alive.

(Image: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Corbyn, although not a shareholder or director of any of Momentum's companies, is perhaps the only person who could do that.

But he's trapped. Without Momentum, Corbyn is nothing but a slightly mad old man with questionable dress sense and the stubbornness of a moth-eaten billy goat.

Without those 12,000 psephologically-unimportant people, a worrying number of whom are ignorant, anti-Semitic, woman-hating bullies, he would have as much chance of leading the Labour Party as of winning a three-legged race on roller skates.

That's why despite knowing all the above Corbyn still talks to them. He asks them to be nice while allowing them to be awful, and lets them flush out and away all those millions of Labour supporters who find their tactics appalling.

(Image: Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Momentum is backed by Corbyn's lieutenants, who are wise enough to realise that without Momentum there is no Corbyn and without Corbyn they would once again be unemployable social misfits in the political wilderness.

The bullies of Momentum flout its code of ethics, ignore the Labour Party's founding principles and can't comprehend electoral reality.

It is emptying the Labour Party of members, public support and purpose, to replace them with bullies, disgust and angry protest.

And Labour's Momentum is now organising it over a cliff.

Not that they care. Labour is, after all, so mainstream and so bothered about being good that it's forgotten how to fight .

If Corbyn loves the Labour Party as he says he does, if he abides by its principles come what may and abhors bullying, sweatshops, hatred and the ignorant screaming of a privileged few, he needs to tell Momentum he wants no more of it or them.

It's not his decision about whether to liquidate someone else's company, but if he doesn't dissociate himself he and his party will be stuck in its blender.

If he is the man he professes to be, the fact that may lead to his becoming a full-time hermit on his allotment sooner rather than later would be a sacrifice I'd have thought St Jeremy should be glad to make.