The Labour Left from Benn to Momentum: continuity and change in strategy and tactics

Previous works have correctly highlighted the strategic and tactical convergences between the Bennite New Left and the Corbyn insurgency. However, such scholarship has underestimated the impact of the differences in the composition between the two intra-party movements. Critically, while the Benn project developed as an attempt to update Labour strategy in times of social upheaval, Momentum and the Corbyn movement emerged as a hybrid alliance between New Left veterans and the extra-parliamentary anti-austerity and libertarian left. This impacted the Left’s conceptualisation of socialist strategy and led to disagreements over tactics. This paper will explain how, despite these differences, the 2010s Left ended up reproducing the core tenets of New Left’s strategy and tactics. This outcome is explained as a consequence of a convergent conceptualisation of social change and the persistence of intra-party conflicts.