Thread by @jammach

There's a lesson in the fall of @UKLabour.
The party membership was swelled massively a few years back by influx of younger members revulsed by the Tories ... And after the fluke election of Corbyn, Momentum was formed.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum_…

They are a very effective campaigning and lobbying group, who are more than prepared to get stuck in and get their hands dirty to get results.
They've forced constituency votes to get rid of Labour MPs and candidates they didn't approve of, influenced change of policy ...

And have been described by Labour MP Owen Smith as entryists, parasitic on the Labour main party, who are like Militant.
A lot of the left wing, new party policies, such as mass renationalisation, have come from Momentum which positions itself as very left of centre.

They gained key seats on the NEC, Women's and LGBTQ groups in order to influence policy, support Corbyn and suppress challenge and criticism.

Any of this sounding familiar to @theSNP members?

Momentum basically thrived inside its own bubble, marginalising MPs such as

Jess Phillips who is more centre left, who recently said she never gets to speak to Corbyn, who was surrounded by a clique.

The problem is the mass of Labour voters, who weren't political activists or politically ambiguous, who didn't get involved in branch politics

Didn't support Momentum, their direction, their policies or their leader. They did voice this, but they were ignored or attacked.
This is what led to Tom Watson resigning, he realised he was powerless within his own party and not being listened to.

So here we are.

Momentum have destroyed the Labour party as powerful electoral challenger and flung it into the wilderness for ten years or more.

What lessons should we take from this?

Well, you don't have to look very far to see the exact same in @theSNP

We have a large, influential group of centre left idealists, coalesced around the idea of Trans rights and Trans activism, who have succeeded in gaining influence and power within the party and are eagerly following the Momentum playbook.

They have key positions in party ...

And have recently started to flex that power. A reform of the GRA legislation was attempted to pass under the radar of the general membership early in 2019. That failed, but they've captured key positions within the party heirarchy and in committees since.

The most recent actions were an attempt to deselect @joannaccherry for standing in the way of supporting GRA reform, before the election, creatively going through 3 years of @JNHanvey Twitter posts to find something damaging to shop him into the press with and trying to get

@GraceBrodie ousted from the conduct committee.
The problem they have though, is the same as Momentum. The voting SNP supporters are rumbling them.

I don't believe it accidental that @JNHanvey won, despite being deselected and despite @NicolaSturgeon requesting no support.

Neither do I believe it accidental that Gethins lost his seat. He had been a vocal supporter of the 'Trans Women Are Women' ideology and has strong links to the so called 'woke' brigade.

Lastly, It's absolutely no coincident that Joanna Cherry hugely added to her majority.

So, I believe there is strong evidence that grass roots SNP voters are waking up and realising that Independence should be the over riding, most important goal, but for some in the party, it's not. They hold Trans Rights as their primary goal and are willing to sacrifice

MP candidates, electoral seats, individuals reputations and primary party goals to advance their aims, ahead of independence.

Now the election is behind us, we need to get this out in the open and resolve it before the Holyrood elections.

Let's discuss.