Thread by @Trump_ton

There is a particular type of political activist - we've seen them most recently jeering and intimidating journalists and opponents in Rochdale.

Many of them, I recognise from Labour meetings in church halls and community centres in Brighton & Hove over the last decade.

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They're very angry and aggressive people, often originally motivated by a good cause - defending the rights of subjugated minorities or opposing an unjust war - but soon they become part of a movement that is just angry ...

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... angry with the chairperson of a meeting discussing who should take the box of rosettes home, or how the local party should spend a £200 bequest from a recently deceased campaigner.

These activists group around leaders who have another agenda

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Sold as a 'real socialists' these leaders, often ex public school boys or ex journalists, rabble rouse their followers to take over roles in the local party and once in place claim a moral victory and then do nothing to further the party's popularity locally

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Instead they use their platform to select candidates for local elections who're loyal to their militant leaders not the national party (often chosen from among their angry ranks).

More moderate party members are pushed away by toxic, angry meetings and sometimes ...

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.. campaigns of intimidation, online and in person. For a while these groups infiltrated the Labour party across the country, congregating around the Momentum movement and a Magic Grandad called Jeremy (another public schoolboy) and then repeated their takeover of Labour

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at a national level - leading to two disastrous general elections and the loss of the referendum.

The worst part of all of this was an underlying Anti-Jewish flavour to the agenda of these angry activists.

I've attended meetings where it's been blatant.

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When Starmer stood for leader, he came to Hove and promised that his first task would be to clean the party up, at all levels and that's been achieved.

Empowered by his lead new people joined the local party, stood for election to roles - and actually did the jobs involved

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Sometimes gradually, sometimes embarrassingly rapidly, the activists left the party or were expelled by the CLP, sometimes leading to the loss of a majority on the council - a heavy price to pay to do the right thing.

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In Brighton & Hove many of the angry activists found themselves without a party machine to intimidate and hijack, most recently they've suddenly become concerned about the environment and joined the Green Party - which is probably why the Greens lost so many seats ...

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... in the last council election. At a national level this leaderless mob of angry activists has focussed it's attention on the current crisis in Gaza. They infiltrate well meaning groups and well intentioned marches and use them to fight, not the government, but Labour ..

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.. they use people's sense of outrage at injustice and mobilise their anger, not to bring down a Tory government or a right-wing foreign power, but to try and bring down the Labour leadership and Labour MPs who don't share their anarchist agenda.

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They don't want power to govern, they seek power in the opposition, in activism, in chaos.

Whether intended or not, this chaos and activism ends up undermining our democracy, locally and nationally.

Dictators like Putin thrive off of this chaos in the West

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It's the same with Trump, except in the USA a radical socialist banner wouldn't get momentum (sic), so instead people like Bannon mobilise angry Republicans to take over the party machine, from school boards to presidency - with the same outcome.

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15/ in the UK we've just seen Galloway, a Tunnock's Trump, mobilise the angry activists to win a seat in Parliament - from which position he'll spout his, seemingly erudite, attacks on the government and the Labour party - primarily the Labour party.

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He won't achieve the Ceasefire he promised his constituency, he won't restore Rochdale's Open Air Market either - because he really doesn't care - a Ceasefire would, in fact, cut off the fuel that powers his campaigning and he'll only visit Rochdale's market for a photo-op.

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Finally, a little optimism

This 'win' for the Gorbals Goebbels isn't the start of a new movement it's the end of the momentum period of UK politics

Starmer's achievement of pushing these activists out of Labour has left them without a local or national platform

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There will be a few months of outrageous, but erudite,/18 speeches in parliament and appearances on RT, Al-Jazeera and GB News from George - but by the election he'll just be another Fáragë - looking for his next grift in Moscow or appearing in Dancing on Ice

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Sorry for the long rambling thread, I'll attempt to turn it into a cartoon later - just wanted to try and capture my thoughts before I forget them and get distracted by something new

/Ends (maybe)

Just in case this thread attracts some of the mentioned activists.

One thing that constantly frustrated me was the 'You're not a REAL socialist because you're not working class enough, not poor enough, not a public service employee or trade unionist'

I'm expecting incoming...

@UnrollHelper