Waltham Forest Socialist Party members respond below to an article on the Left Futures website on 5 December, by Jon Lansman, a director of Momentum.
The article – ‘Lies, distortions and misconceptions about Momentum and the lobbying of MPs‘ – includes a hostile accusation directed at Waltham Forest Socialist Party member Nancy Taaffe who appeared on the Daily Politics show (see: After the vote in parliament to bomb Syria).
The Socialist Party responded to a community event called by Walthamstow Labour Party members who support Corbyn, as we do. We are outraged and appalled that Jon Lansman, a director of Momentum, would write such an article, in effect pandering to the right wing press and the right wing in the Labour Party.
Nancy Taaffe is a long-standing campaigner against cuts and privatisation. She participated in this demo and went on national television to step forward to defend that demo, the local community and the organisers.
It is a serious mistake and an outrage for Jon Lansman to echo the sort of accusations that have been leveled at Corbyn’s Labour Party. The Tories say Corbyn and his supporters in opposition to the bombing of Syria are terrorist sympathisers. The Labour right wing call Momentum a rabble and bullies and now a director of Momentum echoes that and calls Nancy Taaffe hostile.
The answer to a witch-hunt is not a witch-hunt. We defend freedom of speech and freedom of organisation essential to the building of a mass war and anti-austerity movement.
