Mobilising for organising?: Momentum’s distributed centralization and Labour Left strategy under Corbyn (2015–2020)

The Corbyn regency of the Labour Party has been marked by an apparent paradox. On one hand, the Left proved able to activate impressive processes of mobilisation during general elections and in confrontations with intraparty adversaries; on the other, it left little if any organisational legacy, rapidly retreating to a position of low relevance shortly after Corbyn’s demise. This article aims to explain such a paradox by referring to Momentum, the collective arm of the intraparty Left, and in particular to the consequences of the organisational logic it adopted, namely distributed centralization. After proposing a novel conceptualisation of distributed centralization, the article analyses, making use of 24 interviews with Momentum activists, how Momentum innovated repertories of mobilisation while proving organisationally fragile. After relating Momentum’s organisational vicissitudes with the distributed centralization logic, this study interprets the choice for this organisational model within the Left’s intraparty strategy.