In an interview with David Axelrod, President Barack Obama appeared to suggest that the UK’s Labour party has moved away from “fact and reality” and is disintegrating.
A spokesperson for the Labour party has since hit back, saying the party “stands for what most people want” and suggested that the outgoing president’s Democratic party needed to “challenge power if they are going to speak for working people”.
Asked by Axelrod about Corbynisation of the Democrats, Obama responded: “I don’t worry about that, partly because I think that the Democratic party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality.
“[The Republican party] started filling up with all kinds of conspiracy theorising that became kind of common wisdom or conventional wisdom within the Republican party base. That hasn’t happened in the Democratic party. I think people like the passion that Bernie brought, but Bernie Sanders is a pretty centrist politician relative to … Corbyn or relative to some of the Republicans.”
The Labour spokesperson has responded saying that “Jeremy Corbyn stands for is what most people want: to take on the tax cheats, create a fairer economy, fund a fully public NHS, build more homes and stop backing illegal wars.”
“For the establishment, those ideas are dangerous. For most people in Britain, they’re common sense and grounded in reality.”
Obama, who is ending his role of President in January, said that if did run again the results would have been different.
“I am confident in this vision because I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could’ve mobilised a majority of the American people to rally behind it,”
Donald Trump has since responded, saying that there is “no way” he would have lost to Obama.
Speaking of what he plans to do when Trump fulfils the role of President, Obama said: “My intention on January 21st is to sleep, take my wife on a nice vacation – and she has said it better be nice… I’m going to start thinking about the first book I want to write,”