Momentum are in the middle of building their next secret weapon – and the Tories don’t stand a chance

Critics of the Corbyn project have been quick to call celebrating Momentum supporters “deluded” and “lacking in class” following Theresa May’s disastrous election – but Labour isn’t as prone to hubris as its Conservative counterparts. Emboldened by her 20 point lead the Prime Minister assumed a landslide majority, and in doing so underestimated the raw man power behind Labour’s campaign. This time around, Labour activists are not taking their success for granted: the party and its members are in campaign mode right now.

During this year’s election, the grassroots network of over 23,000 members and 150 local groups, surprised critics with their new take on campaigning. In a panel discussion this week Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, recalled scrambling around for volunteers in 2015. Two years on, she was turning recruits away thanks to Momentum’s My Nearest Marginal app. The software allowed anyone, regardless of them being Momentum or Labour Party members, to input their post code, find their nearest marginal seat – a constituency held by an MP with a small majority – and connect with other members to travel to these areas to join canvassing sessions.

In addition, Carpool Momentum – arranged rides for canvassers during the Copeland and Stoke by-elections – and the phone banking web-app Calling for Corbyn – allowed volunteers to phone bank from the comfort of their own home. People who hadn’t the time or resources to get involved before jumped on board.

There isn’t much support for moving voting online from the dusty corridors of Westminster, and it to be honest it was a relief that the Government’s servers didn’t crash this time around when dealing with surges in last minute voter registration (the same can’t be said for during the EU referendum). So in lieu of these vital and inevitable changes, Momentum is filling in the gaps in British politics by making campaigning accessible.

Now, even top Conservatives have admitted that they need to learn from the left-wing group’s methods. But they’re already one step behind. Headed up by Ruth Berry, Momentum’s digital officer, this weekend the group is hosting a Digital Hub to bring together developers, designers, UI/UX engineers and organisers to in an effort to come up with the next online weapon to ensure a Labour victory.

The group is already inviting members to door-knocking day trips to areas held by Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd and Iain Duncan Smith on Facebook, and it isn’t a great leap to use the same designs behind My Nearest Marginal to target these and other high profile Tory Cabinet members.

There is also the possibility of using the carpool app architecture to share other campaign materials and skills. Phone banking software can be re-purposed to train volunteers remotely. Apps can be developed to make campaign manifestos more accessible – or even interactive – swiping left or right on policies, a la Tinder, as they take your fancy.

It doesn’t even have to be limited to the election cycle. Technology could be developed to allow local groups to use apps to coordinate food bank drop-offs, or other community activities.

In the longer term and on a more ambitious scale, apps could be developed to facilitate decision-making within local party meetings as well as crowdsourcing policy ideas to be discussed at the national level, transforming the way we do politics.

These are ideas that may be floating around Conservative HQ already, but with only 140,000 members the Tories may have the money to research and develop new apps, but what they don’t have, unlike Momentum, is the people to use them.