Between Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader and his 2019 election defeat, it was possible — if sometimes difficult — to imagine a resurgent British socialist movement taking power in Westminster. This sliver of hope galvanized the Corbyn leadership campaign into the creation of a new mass membership organization: Momentum. We were intent on defending and extending the gains of the Corbyn leadership and socialism faced with opposition from the capitalist class and its agents in the press, Parliament, and even within the Labour Party.

In 2017, Momentum’s capacity to mobilize Labour’s socialist base proved vital. The party’s surge denied Tory prime minister Theresa May her majority and brought the largest increase in Labour’s vote share since 1945. As Brexit tore apart both main parties, a Corbyn government still seemed possible. But — aided by Labour’s disastrous push for a second referendum on the European Union — Boris Johnson succeeded in imposing his own hegemonic project.

Today, his Tory party is in crisis, rocked by resignations by top ministers. A snap election could be imminent — but if anything, it is the political center, not the Left, that is set to profit. Where Momentum was once able to make the political weather, today it has functionally vanished from national politics.