Jeremy Corbyn hits back at Barack Obama's comments about his politics

Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at Barack Obama after the outgoing US President launched what appeared to be an attack on his politics.
President Obama said the Democrats will not move left as Labour have done under Mr Corbyn because they are “pretty grounded in fact and reality.”



He added that even failed Democrat nominee Bernie Sanders is “a pretty centrist politician relative to Corbyn” in a broad argument against politics of extremes.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn shot back that the Labour leader “stands for what most people want” and "for the establishment, those ideas are dangerous".


The spokesman said today: "Both Labour and US Democrats will have to challenge power if they are going to speak for working people and change a broken system that isn't delivering for the majority.

"What 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".
Mr Obama made the comments in a lengthy interview with David Axelrod, his ex-strategist who also advised Ed Miliband in Labour's failed 2015 election campaign.
In a barbed attack, Mr Axelrod asked if he was "worried about the Corbynisation of the Democratic Party" and said Labour "just sort of disintegrated in the face of their defeat and [moved] so far left it's in a very frail state."
He added: "There is an impulse to respond to the power of Trump by, you know, being as edgy on the left."



Mr Obama replied: "I don't worry about that, partly because I think that the Democratic Party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality.

"Trump emerged out of a decade, maybe two, in which the Republican Party, because it had to say no for tactical reasons, moved further and further and further away from what we would consider to be a - a basic consensus around things like climate change or how the economy works.
"And it 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."



He added: "What I do worry about is that in an era where we are looking for simple solutions... that we end up starting to shut ourselves off from different points of view, shutting down debate, becoming more dogmatic, becoming more brittle."