Latest news with #TonyBenn
The Guardian
11-08-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Digging up ideas for Jeremy Corbyn's new party
Toby Wood suggests that Jeremy Corbyn's new party should be called the Allotment party (Letters, 8 August). More appropriate would be the Diggers, after the radical and egalitarian group that emerged during the English revolution in the 1640s. Its members were rightly identified by Tony Benn as 'the first true socialists'.Lynn WilliamsBarry, Vale of Glamorgan In view of the commitments that setting up a new party involves, maybe Jeremy Corbyn, come next February, might try the no-dig method on his allotment. It will save time and his PalmerDoonfoot, Ayrshire My apologies to Jeremy Corbyn (Letters, 8 August). I am with him on the folly of selling allotments. Let's hope climate change does not also rob us of the joy of lifting parsnips from frozen ground on our allotments with a pickaxe, as I have occasionally. But then I am a bit long in the FrancisTunbridge Wells, Kent Wondering about Jeremy Corbyn's gardening practices, I recall the plight of Lonnie Donegan. His follow-up to the magnificent Rock Island Line was Diggin' My Potatoes, which was banned by the BBC for being too suggestive. I hope there's no one trampling on Jeremy's MarshallScrooby, Nottinghamshire Stephen Pound, ex-MP and chair of Framfield Allotment Association, plants his spuds on Good Friday (Letters, 8 August). That, however, is a movable feast; in Ireland we plant them on St Patrick's Day, and harvest them on the Twelfth of FinlayPortrush, County Antrim Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Times
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Green firebrand challenges Corbynites: Join me in the radical left
On June 29, 2016, Jeremy Corbyn appeared at a central London rally and made an attempt to move on from the Brexit referendum held the previous week. The Labour leader was instead heckled by a 33-year-old hypnotherapist actor who, unbeknown to the left-wing activists present, had just launched his political career as a candidate for the Liberal Democrats. 'What about Europe, Jeremy!' Zack Polanski jeered. 'Where were you when we needed you?' Corbyn, brow furrowed, appeared speechless, leaving his supporters to hiss and drown out the noise. Today, Polanski is neither an unknown on the left nor a Lib Dem. The tiggerish London Assembly member is running to become leader of the Green Party, of which he is already deputy and whose politics over the past decade have tracked him in moving steadily leftwards. He is still generating headlines and posing complicated questions of Corbyn and the Corbynites. The surprising dynamic is that Polanski — a gay vegan Jew who long ago traded his native Salford for north London — is now doing so in the spirit of comradeship. Addressing the question of his transformation, he invokes Corbyn's hero, Tony Benn: he is interested in where people are going, he says, not where they are from. As such, Polanski has spent recent weeks positioning himself as the radical socialist and pro-Palestine — for which read Corbynite — candidate for the leadership not only of the Greens but of the British left in its entirety. The size and political complexion of the Greens' grassroots membership today is poorly understood (last year it was estimated to number about 57,000, albeit it is thought to have grown since) but his 'eco-populist' vision has generated more noise than his two rivals, MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, who are running on a joint ticket. In the event that he wins the contest, the results of which will be announced at the start of September after a summer of campaigning, he wants the independent MP for Islington North in the tent. Speaking from the Glastonbury festival, where he is busy canvassing, and where Corbyn appeared on the Pyramid Stage at his peak in 2017, Polanski said: 'Anyone who aligns with our values in the Green Party is very welcome to join the party, and so I'd love to see progressive left-wing MPs in the party.' Does that include Corbyn? What of his parliamentary protégés, including those in the Socialist Campaign Group, the left-wing faction of Labour MPs? He confirms: 'Anyone who aligns — and I believe that Zarah [Sultana, the firebrand MP for Coventry South] and Jeremy do align with where the Green Party are — that's a decision for them.' He rattles off a list of socialist positions he would seek to enact: 'protecting the NHS'; 'building social homes'; a 'wealth tax'; and stopping the 'genocide in Gaza'. The reason such pronouncements are causing much debate, and a degree of discomfort, on the left is that it has spent the almost two years since October 7 discussing the future of progressive politics — but failing to identify a clear solution or leader before the next election. Polanski, as one Corbynite puts it, is threatening to 'eat [our] lunch'. Since last year, Reform UK has taken centre stage as the main opposition to Sir Keir Starmer and the established order in Westminster. Yet the Greens won four seats, their most so far and one fewer than Reform, secured two million votes, and came second in 40 seats. Elsewhere, disgruntled socialists and Muslim voters delivered five independent MPs, Corbyn among them. The difference is that Nigel Farage has long personified the anti-immigrant, anti-woke sentiment; is a dominant figure within Reform who has vanquished all internal allies; and has singular communications skills. The radical left has no such person. It has a more complicated relationship with hierarchy in the first instance. It is also less of the view that parliament is the only place where proper politics can be done, especially on the issue of Gaza. Parliamentary chicanery has had far less impact, and visibility, than weekly marches up and down the country, attacks on allegedly pro-Israel businesses and the recent infiltration of RAF Brize Norton. Polanski is adamant that opposition to Israel's actions in Gaza is not limited to the party's traditional urban base — in cities like Brighton and Bristol — nor the British Muslim community. He says of the Red Wall areas where Greens have performed surprisingly well — among them South Tyneside council, where they are the second largest party now: 'In fact, I think in those seats, people are equally concerned with the genocide in Gaza, and people are really affected by inequality.' The Greens — who were the first party in England and Wales to call the Jewish state an 'apartheid' and the first to say it was committing 'genocide' — has at times faced criticism for its track record on expelling antisemitic councillors, but also its focus on the Middle East. Its current leader hand-delivered a petition to her local council asking the mayor to write to the foreign secretary to demand a ceasefire, and prior to the last election circulated leaflets featuring the Palestine flag and images of rubble. Polanski is unapologetic about that. 'I think fundamentally, there's a genocide in Gaza. And actually, the Palestinian people are the story here,' he says. 'And I think often we can all get distracted by talking about groups and actions. And actually, I'd much rather focus on stopping the war, working for a ceasefire, and ending the occupation of Israel.' Adding to the complexity is the fact that many of the left's leading lights — such as Sultana — are still part of Labour, even if she is currently suspended. And others still suffer from what their nemesis, Lord Mandelson, has called 'long Corbyn': the trauma of his suspension from Labour, his repudiation at the ballot box in 2019 and the allegations of antisemitism. Still, leading figures on the left are increasingly of the view that something needs to be done to capitalise on the political moment. Gaza remains a galvanising force — and anti-Labour sentiment is not going away, either on the activist left or in the Muslim community. Support for Labour among committed progressives has fallen from 67 per cent in 2019 to 49 per cent at last year's election, and down to 39 per cent last month. Over the past week, three Greens have won council by-elections triggered by defections or resignations from Labour — including most recently its first in Greenwich. Current polling suggests that — even without a Corbynite tilt — the party would win ultra-safe Labour seats such as Huddersfield. Meanwhile, Luke Tryl, of the pollster More in Common, points to the fact that, in local elections in May, in seats where more than 30 per cent of voters were Muslim, half voted for independent candidates. Within a political tradition known for its splittism, there is unanimity within the left only about the fact such feeling demands one of three things: a new party, a parliamentary grouping or a national movement. To that, Polanski's rejoinder is simple: all three already exist in the form of the Greens. In the event he wins, he says, he intends to depart from the party's traditional identity — as a 'single-issue party' of polar bears and saving the countryside — and pivot towards full-fat leftism. He explains: 'So it's up to anyone what they want to do in terms of starting new things. But actually, I'd encourage anyone right now, whether they're a member of another party, or indeed, an MP from another party, if they align with our values, to join with the Greens.' While his party has a quixotic structure that requires leadership elections every two years and involves the grassroots in policymaking, Polanski has been unusually prepared to speak the usual language of conventional politics. He says the party needs to be less timid and to 'learn' from Farage, whose communications skills, and clarity of vision, have made him favourite to be the next prime minister. And despite the queasiness on the left about the role of parliament, Polanski has resolved, as Farage did, that all roads to power run through Westminster. He says: 'I actually have a constituency in mind, and I want to be one of the first group of new London MPs, or first group of London Green MPs.' • Baroness Jones: You're never too old to be arrested as a Green The question then — beyond the outcome of the race — is whether or not the rest of the left has a rival plan. After a More in Common poll suggested a party led by Corbyn could win 10 per cent of the vote, Andrew Murray, his former aide, last week revealed in an eyebrow-raising account in the socialist daily Morning Star two options had long been under consideration. One was Collective, a new national party founded by Karie Murphy, Corbyn's former chief of staff, whose central idea is to install him as interim leader. The other, which is nameless, seeks to create a looser parliamentary grouping of pro-Gaza MPs, possibly with Corbyn or Sultana as figureheads. Murray added that those two tendencies had now combined, indicating a new organisation could be launched imminently. For the Greens, or any new party, there is a final question. Even if the left found a way to unite, what is the best it could achieve at a general election in 2029? The idea of a progressive alternative to Starmer has acquired momentum precisely because of his rightward shift and his determination instead to court Reform votes. Yet if he continues to fall in the polls, would liberal and left voters not support him in order to avoid opening the door to Farage? More in Common says that most Green (57 per cent) and Lib Dem (51 per cent) voters would vote tactically to keep out Reform. For now, it appears that, whatever its configuration, in Westminster at least, the left is likely to remain on the periphery.
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Aimee Lou Wood receives 'vile' death threats over anti-war post
In the wake of the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday, The White Lotus actress took to Instagram to share a clip of British politician Tony Benn's anti-war speech from 1998. In the speech, Benn discussed how civilians are most affected by war. Wood later returned to Instagram to reveal that, since reposting the clip, she had received death threats online. The 31-year-old wrote over the top of a selfie, "Love getting vile threats of violence and death just for saying I'm against war and innocent people dying... The world is crazy.'
Daily Mirror
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Aimee Lou Wood sent 'vile threats of violence' after sharing anti-war speech
The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Woods reveals she was on the receiving end of violent death threats after posting a famous anti-war speech by British politician Tony Benn British actress Aimee Lou Wood has claimed she was on the receiving end of violent threats after posting an anti-war speech to her Instagram account. In the wake of the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites on June 15, The White Lotus star came to Instagram to share a clip of British politician Tony Benn's anti-war speech. In 1998, the former member of the Labour party appealed to MPs as they debated whether the UK should carry out a bombing raid on Iraq in conjunction with the US. He emphasised how innocents, including children, are the main casualties of war. It includes the famous and harrowing line: 'Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die?' However, Aimee later posted an Instagram story claiming that she had received threatening messages on the back of her post. Over a selfie, the 31-year-old wrote: "Love getting vile threats of violence and death just for saying I'm against war and innocent people dying... The world is crazy.' Reacting to the post on Reddit, fans were quick to share their support and commend Aimee for making a statement. One wrote: 'F them, I'm so glad Aimee is speaking up.' 'Apparently not wanting another war and innocent people dying is not in fashion this year,' a second joked. Another simply added: 'She's right, the world is stupid.' For more stories like this visit The Gulp or subscribe to our weekly newsletter for a curated roundup of top stories, interviews, and lifestyle picks from The Mirror's Audience U35 team delivered straight to your inbox. Others also expressed dismay and concern over the political landscape – as well as what it might mean for the future. One commenter said: 'Shows how small minded the world is.' They added: 'How people can be accepting of all the terrible fucking shit our 'world leaders' do. I am petrified of what life my children are going to have.' Another pointed out that Aimee has been vocal in her support of other causes, notably Palestine: 'Aimee has been pretty vocal about her support for Palestine since October… attacks. I admired her back in the day for her postings when NO one was doing anything.' On the back of the October 7 attacks, the actress also took to Instagram, frequently reposting fundraisers and appeals for the Gaza humanitarian crisis and statistics on the rise in Islamophobic hate crimes in London. She told The Cut that she had a personal tie to the cause, as her grandfather had been 'a soldier in Palestine'. However, her outspoken support led to intense backlash online. As reported by The Cut, she was warned by police that the threats she was facing could have real consequences and that she should be cautious. Help us improve our content by completing the survey below. We'd love to hear from you!
News.com.au
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Aimee Lou Wood receives ‘vile' death threats over anti-war post
In the wake of the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday, The White Lotus actress took to Instagram to share a clip of British politician Tony Benn's anti-war speech from 1998. In the speech, Benn discussed how civilians are most affected by war. Wood later returned to Instagram to reveal that, since reposting the clip, she had received death threats online. The 31-year-old wrote over the top of a selfie, "Love getting vile threats of violence and death just for saying I'm against war and innocent people dying... The world is crazy.'
