An evening with Momentum at the Labour Party conference

By BAGEHOT | BRIGHTON

I VENTURED into Momentum’s “A World Transformed” jamboree—a sort of parallel conference running alongside the main Labour Party conference—with some nervousness. Momentum has a reputation for playing hardball: they were responsible for making sure that Brexit wasn’t really discussed at the conference, for example. The meeting has seen a lot of journalist-bashing: Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editor, is accompanied by a bodyguard and any mention of the press elicits jeers. “A World Transformed” is held in an off-putting warren of rooms: a makeshift “hub”, where people gather to chat and organise, a cavernous night club, where meetings are held, and other rooms that looked too frightening to enter.