Momentum chief: winning elections is for political elites

Oh dear. Today Jeremy Corbyn fuelled concerns that he isn’t interested in winning power when he failed to say that winning a general election was a priority, during an appearance on the Andrew Marr Show.

Now Jon Lansman, the Momentum chief, has waded into the ‘should winning matter to a major political party?’ debate. After tweeting his followers to urge them to stand by Jeremy Corbyn in the face of the Labour coup, former Blair spinner John McTernan responded by suggesting that Corbynistas only care about their leader — rather than the party or country:

To Corbynistas and most party members, democracy matters

— Jon Lansman 🟣 (@jonlansman) July 10, 2016

While Lansman — who is in charge of the hard-left grassroots campaign group — suggested that democracy was what mattered, McTernan interjected that the one thing they could be certain of is that winning did not.

Rather than contest this Lansman replied that ‘winning’ is only a ‘small bit’ of democracy that matters to ‘political elites who want to keep power themselves’.

It seems then that for Lansman, the introduction of tax credits and maternity rights — or even policy development in general — are simply part of a conspiracy by the political elite to maintain power for power’s sake.