They say that it can work without it,
but do you see LN working?They are full of shit, No segwit and LN will not work the way they need it too.
Miners have blocked segwit (it will never be implemented), so tell core to activate LN unless they are lying.

FYI:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/5dt8tz/confused_is_segwit_needed_for_lightning_network/However, without segwit or another malleability fix, LN channels have to deal with situations where transactions get mutated ("malleated"), which makes them get stuck at various steps.
Preventing them from getting stuck permanently requires either introducing trust (which we don't want to do) or setting some annoying timeouts that limit the efficiency of channels.
No segwit , No LN the way they have promised it.
