Tony Benn Articles

The eternal truth that the far-left loves schisms has been proved right again There is an old joke on the left which runs something like this: if you put five Trots in a room, pretty soon you will have six different factions. It is not a great joke, I will grant you,...

Brexit reveals the Labour leader’s longstanding worldview as a paradox of open borders and a closed shop economy, writes Richard Carr We live in uneasy political times. If Whitehall might be ‘muddled’ on Brexit, Labour is currently mystifying on the issue. This...

Socialist protectionism is as unattractive now as in the 1970s After Labour’s 1970 election defeat, Tony Benn convinced himself that he could succeed next time where last time he and his colleagues had failed. Benn’s ‘alternative economic strategy’ envisaged import...

I understand Corbynmania because I was, for a while, a Corbynista, although, in 1981, we called ourselves Bennites. Young and politically naïve, brought up by centre-left parents, I could see the Tories had their tails up, Labour seemed to have lost its way with the...