Sinister hard-left activists at Momentum are hijacking the Labour Party and forcing out moderates
Labour moderates are convinced opposition to the plan to transform a sprawling Seventies estate in Haringey with 5,000 new homes is a front for something sinister
IN the streets around Tottenham FC’s plush new football stadium, a vicious political war is going on.
The local council, Haringey, wants to spend £2billion replacing a sprawling Seventies estate with 5,000 new homes.
The Labour-run authority has pledged that residents can move back to Northumberland Park when the houses are completed.
This regeneration project — known as Haringey Development Vehicle — will be paid for with public and private money. But a protest campaign — Stop HDV — has begun, backed by Momentum, the far-Left supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.
They have been telling tenants they will be “socially cleansed”, and sent away to cities like Birmingham and Liverpool, never to return.
But Labour moderates are convinced opposition to the plan to transform the estate is a front for something far more sinister.
Party member Nora Mulready fears the Stop HDV campaign is a Trojan horse for Jeremy Corbyn’s backers to seize control of the council. She believes that, at local elections in May, Haringey will become the first council in Britain to be controlled by Momentum — the party within a party that helped Corbyn become Labour leader.
If her grim prediction comes true, these hardliners will get their hands on the council’s £800million annual budget. And she has every reason to feel pessimistic.
In recent months 17 Labour councillors, many of them moderates, have quit or been de-selected. Their places on the ballot paper will be taken by Momentum placemen.
Nora, 35, said: “People will be voting Labour but they will be getting Momentum. We’re in dark times for moderate Labour.
“If you support the Labour council, you are treated as some sort of a traitor. If you find a way to take them on and win they will find another way to attack you.”
The local campaign forum, the committee that will decide which councillors represent Labour in May, is now dominated by Momentum members. Nora said: “Momentum seemed to have lots of activists prepared to inform on any councillor who even mentioned the re-selection process.”
In scenes reminiscent of Soviet-era Russia, some moderates were accused of having “unauthorised conversations” in pubs or of re-tweeting “derogatory” news articles and warned they would be blocked from standing on disciplinary grounds.
Councillor Sheila Peacock, 86, a Labour member for more than half a century, supports the plans to regenerate the estate, whose residents she has represented for 26 years.
Her local branch of the Labour Party decided she should represent them in May’s ballot.
But Momentum refused to endorse her as a candidate due to one of her Facebook posts. She was taken to hospital suffering from stress.
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There was no investigation into the complaint over the post, which Labour moderates describe as “ridiculous and overblown”.
Sheila is now recovering but there is still a cloud over her selection as a candidate.
And this week, Labour’s governing body took the highly unusual step of asking Haringey to halt the housing redevelopment scheme.
The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) requested Haringey Council put a stop to the HDV, even though the national body rarely concerns itself with local issues. Concerns about the regeneration plans were raised at the first NEC meeting following the election of three new hard-Left candidates, including Momentum chairman Jon Lansman. Moderates in Westminster are also concerned by Momentum’s turf war in North London.
Tony Blair’s former press aide Alastair Campbell tweeted about the estate: “The hard-Left is exploiting it and that is damaging the interests of working class people there.”
But last night on the Northumberland Park estate, it seemed Momentum had won.
Left in luxury
FOUNDED in October 2015, Momentum has 35,000 members in 170 groups around the UK.
The hard-Left organisation was set up following Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader and its stated aim is to “help Labour become the governing party of the 21st Century”.
One of its founders, public school-educated Jon Lansman, 60, lives in a multi-million-pound apartment near Tower Bridge.
By manipulating party rules, he and two cronies were voted on to Labour’s National Executive Committee earlier this month.
We spoke to a number of families who are now convinced they will be sent away — never to return. Franklin Thomas, 53, has lived in a flat there for 45 years.
He said: “I’m worried they would move me to another part of the country. I do not want that. I’ve no relatives anywhere else.”
Jevon Semper, 35, has lived in a flat there since 2009. He said: “It all just feels like a scam. The council want to get us out.”
Nora said: “Haringey has some of the UK’s worst deprivation. Momentum are destroying all the work that’s gone into improving people’s lives.”
Momentum’s national training officer, Beth Foster-Ogg, 20, said: “What has happened is simple.
"People have said councillors are going to do bad things to our community and they have used their rights to stop them from being councillors.”