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Owen Jones

Owen Jones

The Guardian

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Natalie Elphicke is a hard-right Tory. Her defection sums up Labour’s contempt for progressive voters

Siri, show me a hollow victory. It is easy to imagine the glee felt by Keir Starmer’s advisers when Natalie Elphicke MP let them know she was minded...

yesterday 6

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Never mind stop the boats: Sunak is using fear to build a life raft for himself. But the people will stop him

Laws that are unjust will inevitably be broken. Here is a basic reading of our history, and indeed how numerous rights and freedoms were secured in...

30.04.2024 40

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Britons don’t like culture wars, but that doesn’t mean the ‘woke mob’ messaging will stop

There was a time in the UK when “culture war” conjured up a certain ugliness that disfigures political discourse across the Atlantic. Particular...

24.04.2024 50

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Britain’s defence policy is more like one big declaration of war

In our increasingly destabilised present, it is difficult not to see echoes of the run-up to the first world war. Back then, a standoff between two...

18.04.2024 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Blood, chaos and decline: these are the fruits of unbridled western hubris

This century has one overarching theme: the fall of the west, that is, the US and its European allies. Every major crisis accelerates the unmistakable...

11.04.2024 90

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The slaughter and famine in Gaza is an atrocity foretold. We demand an end to it

There are no excuses for ignoring where Israel’s onslaught against Gaza would lead. After slaughtering seven World Central Kitchen aid workers,...

03.04.2024 200

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The poor need the money, the rich may not – but I say hands off the state pension triple lock

A wealthy nation can afford to offer a comfortable and secure existence for all of its citizens. If it chooses not to do so, that is a political...

27.03.2024 50

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The Labour party is in my blood. Here’s why I’ve just cancelled my membership

It’s difficult to disentangle Labour from my sense of self. Grew up in Stockport, looks a bit like Macaulay Culkin, bad dress sense … the Labour...

21.03.2024 300

The Guardian

Owen Jones

A dark pattern runs through British politics: when the powerful lose control, protesters suffer

Britain’s latest descent into authoritarianism fits a depressingly familiar pattern. This is how it tends to work: a subversive group is identified...

07.03.2024 8

The Guardian

Owen Jones

After George Galloway’s triumph in Rochdale, urgent questions loom for Keir Starmer – and the left, too

When Keir Starmer’s political project comes crashing down, as one day it will, George Galloway’s Rochdale triumph should be remembered as a...

01.03.2024 20

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Welcome to topsy-turvy Britain, where it’s opponents of Israel’s war who are the extremist ‘mob’

A new consensus has emerged in British politics: peaceful protesters are dangerous, hateful extremists, but apologists for the mass slaughter of tens...

29.02.2024 200

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Anti-migrant, pro-Boris, anti-care worker: the Tories are pushing panic buttons that no longer work

Finally, we have a government prepared to stand up to that under-scrutinised bane of British society: care workers. Our home secretary, James...

21.02.2024 40

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Labour’s cynical handling of the Azhar Ali affair will come back to haunt it in government

Keir Starmer’s team attempted to rescue the political career of a 7 October “truther”, because he belonged to his faction. Cut out all the...

14.02.2024 6

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Does Starmer care that his Gaza stance is angering and repelling Muslim voters? I see no sign that he does

It’s easy to determine the morality of a political party by examining who is welcome and who is not. In Keir Starmer’s Labour, apologists for war...

05.02.2024 50

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Demoralised and shattered: yes, the left in the UK is down. But here’s why it isn’t out

There are now three certainties in life: death, taxes and Keir Starmer becoming prime minister within a year. A coalition of panicked Tories and bored...

25.01.2024 90

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The west’s complete contempt for the lives of Palestinians will not be forgotten

What is the value of a Palestinian life? For those retaining delusions not already buried in the rubble of Gaza alongside entire families – like the...

21.01.2024 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The brutality and inhumanity of Israel’s assault on Gaza is no surprise. It’s just what was promised

It always starts with words. Genocide is largely remembered for its depraved acts, but it is incubated in language. Words can cast dark spells on a...

13.01.2024 300

The Guardian

Owen Jones

2023 was the year governments looked at the climate crisis – and decided to persecute the activists

Injustice is easy to oppose after it has receded into the past, and there is no cost to imagining yourself as a hero long after the event. Everyone...

22.12.2023 7

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Awful as it was, Thatcherism did transform Britain. Starmerism just promises more of the same

There is nothing wrong with the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, noting the transformative nature of Margaret Thatcher’s administrations. It is, after...

08.12.2023 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Who will shine a light on the atrocities in Gaza if all the journalists are wiped out?

Israel’s onslaught against Gaza is a Russian doll of horror, with many atrocities tucked within. Described by the United Nations as a “graveyard...

29.11.2023 4

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Despite the truce, people in Gaza will keep dying – this horrifying death toll must never be forgotten

Even if the truce between Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Hamas results in the promised four-day pause in hostilities – or longer – the...

22.11.2023 5

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Brave Labour MPs have voted with their conscience. Where is Keir Starmer’s?

This was a crucial moment in Labour’s history. With one in every 200 Palestinians in Gaza now estimated to have been killed in this five-week...

16.11.2023 70

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Suella Braverman was the pantomime villain, but don’t expect the story to change now she’s gone

That Suella Braverman ever graced one of the great offices of state should forever dispel any illusions about our political establishment. She owed...

14.11.2023 90

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Protesting on Armistice Day isn’t a disgrace. Vilifying those who stand up for peace is

Traditionally, here is what happens when Armistice Day falls on a Saturday. Millions observe a two-minute silence at 11am to remember the fallen. Life...

08.11.2023 6

The Guardian

Owen Jones

As Gaza crumbles, those speaking up for innocent Palestinians are being silenced and sacked

What exactly was the offence of computational biologist Michael Eisen that led to him being sacked as editor of eLife, a prestigious peer-reviewed...

31.10.2023 3

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Israel is clear about its intentions in Gaza – world leaders cannot plead ignorance of what is coming

If I knew then what I know now. For many of the guilty men and women who plunged Iraq into blood and chaos, this became something of a stock phrase....

24.10.2023 400

The Guardian

Owen Jones

UK politicians have got it wrong on the Israel-Hamas war. We must hold them to account

What value a Palestinian civilian life? For Britain’s political establishment, the answer is precious little. Revulsion at the slaughter of Israeli...

18.10.2023 200

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Starmer’s path to No 10 is assured – that’s why voters must demand greater ambition

B y the end of next year, Keir Starmer will reside in 10 Downing Street as the 58th British prime minister. This near inevitability is widely...

11.10.2023 20

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Tory conference revealed a party that’s crumbling – and with Nigel Farage laying siege to its future

A visit to Conservative party conference is like being transported to the recent past of another country. When the US Republicans were routed in...

05.10.2023 100

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Whether or not Suella Braverman becomes the next Tory leader, her extreme ideas rule the party

W hat is Suella Braverman up to? Framing migrants as an existential threat to western civilisation, assailing multiculturalism, while talking darkly...

28.09.2023 80

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Robbing the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich – Britain is a Tory test lab for a new rightwing populism

S pare a moment’s thought for Britain, a country twice used as a laboratory for the latest trend in rightwing politics. Four decades ago, we were...

12.09.2023 4

The Guardian

Owen Jones

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