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Owen Jones

Owen Jones

The Guardian

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Starmer should not be the fall guy for Labour’s failures. This disaster was written by committee

yesterday 30

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The ICC arrest warrants must bring an end to Israel’s atrocities – and true accountability for all the guilty

It is not just Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant who should fear accountability for one of the gravest crimes of our age. If the international...

21.11.2024 20

The Guardian

Owen Jones

With Trump heading for the White House, the Democrats must learn these lessons – and fast

Did the Democrats really lose because they were too “woke”, too obsessed with minorities, too radical? After defeat, there always comes the battle...

20.11.2024 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Is there any red line that Israel will be held to? Biden has just confirmed the answer is no

This is a story about an apparently invincible fortress: the west’s official narrative about Israel’s war on Gaza. No matter how depraved the...

13.11.2024 100

The Guardian

Owen Jones

I’ve been on the road speaking to the US right. Trump’s victory was not a surprise

Wherever I went during the last days of the US election campaign, Donald Trump supporters told me the same thing. From Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, the...

06.11.2024 80

The Guardian

Owen Jones

For rioters like Peter Lynch, jail was never the answer

If the British hard right are known for anything, other than trying to kick out migrants and ranting about “woke”, it’s promoting a justice...

29.10.2024 9

The Guardian

Owen Jones

In its assault on northern Gaza, Israel has taken its depraved campaign to new depths

The killing fields of northern Gaza speak of a crime that was confessed to long ago. The Israeli state is creating “a lifeless desert” and an...

17.10.2024 100

The Guardian

Owen Jones

On the streets of Vienna, I saw Austrians’ rage at the march of the far right – but also their helplessness

Last Thursday, on a cool Vienna night, anti-fascist protesters thronged through the pretty boulevards of Austria’s capital. The far right – in the...

08.10.2024 20

The Guardian

Owen Jones

What atrocity would Israel have to commit for our leaders to break their silence?

Consider these two parallel universes. One is Gaza, the scene of some of the worst atrocities committed in the 21st century, as Israel’s genocidal...

03.10.2024 40

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The speech Keir Starmer should give: our economic model is broken – and I’ll pay for my own Arsenal tickets

Conference, I stand here ready to bury Britain’s age of decline and usher in the age of ambition. For years, politicians have offered this nation a...

24.09.2024 60

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Think the left is finished? Look to the Greens and Independent Alliance – and think again

In the aftermath of Jeremy Corbyn’s loss in the 2019 general election, many hostile to his leadership thought the left consigned to history. But the...

06.09.2024 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

From football matches to Taylor Swift tickets, Starmer’s penchant for perks is a disconcerting trait

Let’s call it the Boris Johnson test. When our rightly disgraced former prime minister was collecting numerous freebies at a time of acute social...

31.08.2024 30

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Here it is, the new right playbook: wreck and impoverish the country, enjoy the high life yourself

Rightwing dogma has cost Britons dearly, but remains the ultimate meal ticket for the guilty men and women. While Tory rule saw workers face the most...

27.08.2024 8

The Guardian

Owen Jones

While the world discussed the Games, Israel was focused on rape

In the second and last week of the Paris Olympics, most of the world was discussing sporting performances and medal tallies. But in Israel, the...

18.08.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Owen Jones

Hind Rajab’s death has already been forgotten. That’s exactly what Israel wants

If you are ever in doubt about the nature of Israel’s onslaught against Gaza, remember this little girl. Hind Rajab was a five-year-old Palestinian...

18.08.2024 20

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The Tories have created an Islamophobic cesspit – but Labour must share some of the guilt

“If we don’t make the white vote angry, he’s gone,” wrote the campaign staffer. “Go strong on the militant Moslem [sic] angle,” while...

10.08.2024 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The Southport riot brought to light the horrifying undercurrents in British politics

How did we get from three little girls being hideously killed at a Taylor Swift dance class to boozed-up, far-right thugs rioting on the streets of...

31.07.2024 30

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Labour should listen to pro-Gaza voters. But it’s letting toxic narratives about them flourish

Here is a tale of two defeats. After the 2019 general election, when Labour lost many seats in parts of England that were crudely labelled the “red...

30.07.2024 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

By disciplining MPs for voting to pull children out of poverty, Keir Starmer has shown us who he really is

The Labour leadership has told you who it is, over and over again: it is time to believe it. Keir Starmer has suspended seven Labour MPs because they...

24.07.2024 6

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The American republic is crumbling before us – and Democrats must share the blame

Has the US entered its late Soviet phase? The country is a gerontocracy led by ailing leaders and with a crisis of confidence in its dominant...

17.07.2024 30

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Grassroots activists thwarted Marine Le Pen in France. Here’s what the UK can learn from them

A pessimist might have concluded that the lights were going out in Europe, with the far right ascendant in France, Germany and beyond. On Sunday,...

09.07.2024 60

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The left revolt against Labour is significant – and the party ignores that at its peril

If the Starmer project has a guiding philosophy, it goes like this: Labour must define itself against the left. If a speech or policy offends the...

05.07.2024 10

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Here’s how bad it is for Sunak: I went to the most Tory seat in Britain – and the word on people’s lips was Reform

If politics is a soap opera, the people of Canvey Island switched off a few years ago. This is England at its most Conservative, literally: the island...

02.07.2024 30

The Guardian

Owen Jones

There’s a shocking absence in this election: politicians won’t mention the Israel-Gaza war

Is this a serious country or not? It is egregious enough that this general election campaign is so stripped of discussion about the defining issues...

21.06.2024 20

The Guardian

Owen Jones

How do you know the Tories are finished? There’s not a single person left to defend their record

And so ends a unique failure in British democratic history. Any political incumbent can expect to have passionate detractors. They can normally count,...

13.06.2024 40

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Bohemian Bristol Central could be the one seat Labour loses on election night. Here’s why

Is this the one seat Labour is set to lose on election night – not to an imploded Conservative party, but rather to the Greens? It would be easy,...

02.06.2024 30

The Guardian

Owen Jones

As the ICC seeks arrests, I ask those who facilitated the Gaza slaughter: what were you thinking?

As the international criminal court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, officially seeks arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, a question must be...

22.05.2024 100

The Guardian

Owen Jones

The students protesting in Dublin are on the right side of history – and they know it

Who tends to get the big foreign policy calls right: student protesters, or their detractors? Answering this question, it turns out, is useful if you...

10.05.2024 80

The Guardian

Owen Jones

Guardian Opinion cartoon Ben Jennings on Natalie Elphicke’s defection from the Conservatives to Labour – cartoon

09.05.2024 70

The Guardian

Owen Jones

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...

08.05.2024 30

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

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