Jon Lansman

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Person.png Jon Lansman  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(Political activist)
Jon Lansman.jpg
Born1957-07-09
Marylebone, London, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materClare College, Cambridge
Founder ofMomentum
PartyLabour Party

Jonathan Lansman (born 9 July 1957)[1] is a British Labour Party activist, who worked on Jeremy Corbyn's successful 2015 campaign for the Labour party leadership, and subsequently founded the pro-Corbyn organisation Momentum.[2]

In October 2017, Jon Lansman was reported to be running for one of three new places on Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC), which will expand the 36-strong body to 39 members and shift its current balance decisively in favour of Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.[3] On 15 January 2018, Jon Lansman and the two other left slate candidates (Yasmine Dar and Rachel Garnham) were duly elected to the NEC.[4]

Early life

Jon Lansman was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Southgate, north London. He was a pupil at the independent Highgate School from 1970–75. He first visited Israel when he was 16:

"I worked on a kibbutz in the Negev and my aunt lived in Beersheba. It was actually a very politicising experience. When I did my bar mitzvah I saw myself as a Zionist and I think after I went there I felt it less. I was more interested in the kibbutz and what I liked about it was the pioneering spirit, the sense of community and radicalism of it."[5]

He read for a degree in economics at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating in 1979.

Political career

Tony Benn supporter

During the Labour Party's early years of opposition following the defeat of James Callaghan's Labour government in 1979, Lansman worked as the "chief fixer" for Tony Benn.[6] He was a prominent member of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) and worked with Benn on his campaign during the 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election.[7] He was also the Secretary of the Rank and File Mobilising Committee (RFMC), which was the primary campaigning organisation for Benn.[8] In 1981, Lansman "did surprisingly badly" but was successful in his election to the Labour Co-ordinating Committee.[9]

During the campaign for the 1981 deputy leadership election, on ITV's Weekend World discussion programme of 21 September, Denis Healey falsely accused Lansman of organising the severe heckling of speeches he had given in Cardiff and Birmingham. Lansman denied this was the case, as he had been in Spain during the Cardiff meeting and travelling to Aberystwyth during the Birmingham meeting.[10][11] Healey later apologised for his mistake.[12] According to Lansman, the producers of Weekend World, London Weekend Television, accepted he had been slandered and made an out of court settlement.[13]

Mervyn Jones identified Lansman as part of a group on the left of the Labour Party that were "quite prepared to see a right-wing breakaway as the necessary cost of swinging the party in what they saw as the desired direction."[14] Alongside Vladimir Derer and Victor Schonfield, Lansman was described as "unreservedly dedicated", with "no political ambitions of [his] own" and "in a position to work day and night for the cause without pay."

Lansman subsequently worked as a researcher for Michael Meacher.

Leadership of Jeremy Corbyn

Jon Lansman volunteered for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign in the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, and was the sole director of an Jeremy Corbyn Campaign 2015 (Supporters) Ltd, an official campaign company that held the data collected by the campaign.[15] During the election, he was criticised for posting a link on Twitter to a Facebook page depicting rival candidate Liz Kendall as a future Leader of the Conservative Party. Lansman's comments were condemned by a Corbyn campaign spokesperson, who said:

"Jon Lansman's tweets are not on behalf of the campaign. We discourage all Jeremy Corbyn supporters from joining in with spoof websites or social media."[16]

Following Corbyn's election on 12 September 2015, Lansman was a founder of the campaign group Momentum.[17] Before the Labour Party Conference in late September 2015, Lansman was defeated by Michael Cashman and Gloria De Piero in an election for membership of the Conference Arrangements Committee, the body that sets the agenda for the Conference.[18] Lansman is reported to be a supporter of mandatory reselection for Labour MPs.[19] On 23 October 2015, his company, Jeremy Corbyn Campaign 2015 (Supporters) Ltd, officially had its name changed to Momentum Campaign Ltd.[20]

In October 2015, he denied rumours that he was planning to stand to be the Labour Party candidate in Michael Meacher's constituency of Oldham West and Royton, which was due for a by-election following Meacher's death on 21 October.[21]

Labour, Israel, Palestinians and Jews

Lansman was interviewed by The Jewish Chronicle in January 2016. He was asked about attitudes to Israel in the Labour Party and the attitudes of Jews towards it: "Yes, of course the vast majority of British Jews are supportive of Israel as a Jewish state – and actually so is Jeremy – but they are far from supportive of all aspects of what is currently happening there", he said. "I think Jews in Britain want peace too. I think Jeremy's message of fairness for the Palestinians is not something that will be rejected by the Jewish community."

At the end of April 2016, after long-standing Corbyn ally Ken Livingstone had made comments which led to his suspension from Labour Party membership, Lansman was quoted as saying:

"A period of silence from Ken Livingstone is overdue, especially on antisemitism, racism and Zionism. It’s time he left politics altogether."[22]

A few days later, in early May, he wrote on the Left Futures blog that the use of the term Zionist to describe supporters of the government in Israel was "counter-productive".[23] He cited one poll in which a larger majority of British Jews, 71%, favoured a Palestinian state, and 75% opposed the Israeli settlements, while only 68% identified as Zionists. A "rational debate about how to change the terms of the current debate" requires, in Lansman's opinion, an acknowledgement "that people on the left may also demonstrate some prejudice of their own."[24]

Private life

Lansman's wife, Beth, died of breast cancer in the late 1990s; the couple had three children. He is an atheist, although he still observes some Jewish festivals.

 

Related Documents

TitleTypePublication dateAuthor(s)Description
Document:The witchfinders are now ready to burn CorbynBlog post28 February 2019Jonathan CookJeremy Corbyn’s allies are being picked off one by one, from grassroots activists like Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth to higher-placed supporters like Chris Williamson and Seumas Milne. Soon Corbyn will stand alone, exposed before the inquisition that has been prepared for him.
Document:This largely pointless EHRC investigation has been welcomed by LabourArticle28 May 2019John Spannyard Indaworks"The upside of all this is that it may well lay to rest the continual Zionist refrain that Labour and Corbyn are an anti-Semitic party. What it is unlikely to do in my view is derail the Corbyn McDonnell project - it's just a bump in that particular road."
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References

  1. ↑ "John Lansman – London – Political Advisor". Check Company. Retrieved 22 November 2015.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  2. ↑ "In the shadows for 35 years, the activist now gaining momentum"
  3. ↑ "Momentum Founder Jon Lansman ‘Set To Run’ For Seat On Labour’s National Executive Committee"
  4. ↑ "Really honoured to now represent almost 600,000 members on the national executive of @UKLabour"
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  6. ↑ Beckett, Francis. "Lessons from Labour's wilderness years". Total Politics. Retrieved 22 November 2015.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  7. ↑ Kogan, David; Kogan, Maurice (1982). The Battle for the Labour Party. Glasgow: Fontana. p. 41. |access-date= requires |url= (help)Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  8. ↑ Kogan, David; Kogan, Maurice (1982). The Battle for the Labour Party. Glasgow: Fontana. p. 108. |access-date= requires |url= (help)Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  9. ↑ Kogan, David; Kogan, Maurice (1982). The Battle for the Labour Party. Glasgow: Fontana. p. 151. |access-date= requires |url= (help)Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  10. ↑ Kogan, David; Kogan, Maurice (1982). The Battle for the Labour Party. Glasgow: Fontana. pp. 112–113. |access-date= requires |url= (help)Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
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  13. ↑ Lansman, Jon (4 October 2015). "Remembering Denis Healey – the good, the bad and the utterly hilarious". Left Futures. Retrieved 19 December 2015.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  14. ↑ Jones, Mervyn (1994). Michael Foot. London: Victor Gollancz. p. 445. ISBN 0575051973.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
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  19. ↑ George Eaton (23 October 2015). "Who will Labour's Oldham by-election candidate be?". New Statesman. Retrieved 8 November 2015.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  20. ↑ "Momentum Campaign Ltd". Companies House. Retrieved 18 December 2015.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
  21. ↑ {{URL|example.com|optional display text}}
  22. ↑ {{URL|example.com|optional display text}}
  23. ↑ "Left Futures"
  24. ↑ {{URL|example.com|optional display text}}
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