Brendan O'Neill | |
---|---|
Nationality | English |
Occupation | Columnist |
Known for | Editor of Spiked (2007–2021) and columnist for The Australian and The Big Issue |
Brendan O'Neill is an English pundit and author. He was the editor of Spiked from 2007 to September 2021, and is its "chief political writer". [1] He has been a columnist for The Australian , The Big Issue , and The Spectator .
Once a Trotskyist, O'Neill was formerly a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and wrote for the party's journal Living Marxism . In 2019, O'Neill said he was a Marxist libertarian. [2] [3]
He began his career at Spiked's predecessor, Living Marxism , the journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which ceased publication after ITN won their libel action following Living Marxism accusing ITN of misrepresenting a picture of a prison camp during the Bosnian war. [4]
Since then, O'Neill has contributed articles to publications in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia including The Spectator , the New Statesman , BBC News Online, The Christian Science Monitor , The American Conservative , Salon , Rising East and occasionally blogged for The Guardian , [5] before moving to The Daily Telegraph . [6] He writes a column for The Big Issue in London and The Australian in Sydney. He also writes articles for The Sun . [7]
O'Neill is a supporter of a united Ireland. [8] He was critical of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA supported. O'Neill wrote, in a 1998 issue of Living Marxism , "The new peace deal is a disgrace... The biggest losers in all this are the republican movement... [W]hat exactly will the republican communities gain at the end of their 25-year struggle? Sinn Fein and the IRA have not just agreed to down arms. They have effectively signed away everything they once stood for, accepting that there will not be a united Ireland." [9] [10]
O'Neill has said that the environmental movement has become a "religious cult" [11] that is "waging war on the working class". [12] He was later criticised for comments about the Swedish environmentalist activist Greta Thunberg. [13] [14] [15] [16] O'Neill has described warnings concerning overpopulation as a "Malthusian" interference in women's right to reproductive freedom. [17] In 2020, in relation to COVID-19, he has argued that "this pandemic has shown us what life would be like if environmentalists got their way". [18] [19]
In September 2019, he said on the BBC's Politics Live that British people should be rioting about delays to Brexit. [20] He said: "I'm amazed that there haven't been riots yet." When asked by guest presenter Adam Fleming: "Do you think there will be riots?", O'Neill responded: "I think there should be." In October 2019, 585 complaints about him calling for riots were dismissed by the BBC's executive complaints unit. [21]
The Revolutionary Communist Party, known as the Revolutionary Communist Tendency until 1981, claimed to be a Trotskyist political organisation formed in 1978. From 1988 it published the journal Living Marxism. It started with only a few dozen supporters; its membership peaked at 200 in the mid-1990s.
Living Marxism was a British magazine originally launched in 1988 as the journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The magazine attracted attention for denying both the Rwandan genocide and Bosnian genocide. Rebranded as LM in 1992, it ceased publication in March 2000 following a successful libel lawsuit brought by ITN over Living Marxism's criticism of ITN's coverage of the Bosnian war. It was promptly resurrected as Spiked, an Internet magazine.
Julia Hartley-Brewer is a conservative British radio presenter, political journalist, and newspaper columnist. She has hosted a radio show on Talkradio simulcast on Talk called Julia Hartley-Brewer on weekdays from 10am.
Charles Hilary Moore, Baron Moore of Etchingham is an English journalist and the chairman of The Spectator. He is a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, and The Sunday Telegraph; he still writes for all three. He is known for his authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher, published in three volumes. Under the government of Boris Johnson, Moore was given a peerage in July 2020, thus becoming a member of the House of Lords.
Spiked is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society. The magazine was founded in 2001 with the same editor and many of the same contributors as Living Marxism, which had closed in 2000 after losing a case for libel brought by ITN.
Claire Regina Fox, Baroness Fox of Buckley, is a British writer, journalist, lecturer and politician who sits in the House of Lords as a non-affiliated life peer. She is the director and founder of the think tank the Academy of Ideas.
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Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg is a Swedish environmental activist known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action to mitigate the effects of human-caused climate change.
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No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference is a book by climate activist Greta Thunberg. It was originally published on 30 May 2019. It consists of a collection of eleven speeches which she has written and presented about global warming and the climate crisis.
"The 1975" is a 2019 song by the English band of the same name from their fourth studio album, Notes on a Conditional Form. It was released on 24 July 2019, and included on the album as the opening track in May 2020. It continues the tradition of the band's albums opening with an eponymous song, but whereas the previous three had a shared set of lyrics sung by Matty Healy, the 2019 song uses different lyrics delivered by the environmental activist Greta Thunberg. She calls for civil disobedience in response to climate change, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in a modified version of her speech "Our House Is on Fire" from the 2019 World Economic Forum.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg made a double crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 2019 to attend climate conferences in New York City and, until it was moved, Santiago, Chile. She sailed from Plymouth, UK, to New York, United States aboard the racing yacht Malizia II, returning from Hampton, Virginia, to Lisbon on the catamaran La Vagabonde. Thunberg refuses to fly because of the carbon emissions of the airline industry and the trip was announced as carbon neutral. As a racing sailboat, the Malizia II has no toilet, fixed shower, cooking facilities or proper beds.
Stuart Waiton is a senior sociology and criminology lecturer at Abertay University. He teaches on matters relating to anti-social behaviour, moral panics, hate crimes, and politics. Ewan Gurr of the Evening Telegraph describes Waiton's political background as "on the far left of the political spectrum and rooted firmly within the revolutionary communist tradition". Waiton described himself as involved in anti-racist campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s as a member of Workers Against Racism, an anti-racist group associated with the British Revolutionary Communist Party.
Xiye Bastida Patrick is a Mexican climate activist and member of the Indigenous Otomi community. She is one of the major organizers of Fridays for Future New York City and has been a leading voice for indigenous and immigrant visibility in climate activism. She is on the administration committee of the People's Climate Movement and a former member of Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. She cofounded Re-Earth Initiative, an international nonprofit organization that is inclusive and intersectional “just as the climate movement should be.” Xiye is pronounced "she-yeh", [ʃi-jɛ].
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has been noted for her skills as an orator. Her speech at the 2019 United Nations climate summit made her a household name. Prior to her speaking engagements, Thunberg had demonstrated outside the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag, using the signage Skolstrejk för klimatet.
Sherelle Emma Jacobs is a British journalist. She is the Assistant Comment Editor at The Daily Telegraph and has previously written for The Guardian.
Naomi Seibt is a German right-wing political activist. She is best known as a climate change denier and for her opposition to climate activist Greta Thunberg. Until April 2020, she was employed by the Heartland Institute, an American conservative and right-wing public policy think tank, which marketed her as the "anti-Greta". She has spoken at multiple events organized by conservative think tanks and has self-identified as a libertarian and an anarcho-capitalist.
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Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate is an environmental advocacy group that was established in February 2019. in response to the international Fridays for Future and Youth Strike 4 Climate movements. Run by a team of student volunteers aged 14 to 24, the group have organised 10 climate strikes as of September 2020, calling for climate justice and drawing attention to the climate and ecological crisis.