Tony Benn

"The violence of the press attacks on Aslef, and the sustained and bitter hostility of the media towards the Labour movement is responsible for the refusal to handle some newspapers on the railways. Day after day Fleet Street conducts its campaign against working people, ignoring their interests, distorting their arguments and abusing their representatives. Working journalists can no longer evade their moral responsibilities by shielding behind their editors, nor editors by shielding behind their proprietors. Nor can arguments based on the freedom of the press be used as an excuse to deny freedom of expression to millions of people who have lost their jobs, suffered cuts in living standards or in essential health and education services."

"[Journalists tell me:] "I didn't write the headline; the editor told me to say that. I will lose my job if I put it differently". But journalists were not exempted from what was happening in society. Their role could be likened to the Jews in Dachau who herded other Jews into the gas chambers."

"It is wholly wrong to blame Marx for what was done in his name, as it is to blame Jesus for what was done in his,"

"I think the SDP really is a very right-wing party. In a funny way it’s more right-wing than Mrs. Thatcher because Mrs. Thatcher is an old-fashioned liberal, if you know what I mean, she believes in market forces and small government. But my knowledge and experience of the SDP is that they believe in a centralised system, they believe in a federal Europe in which we would only be a province under Brussels, they believe in retaining the American bases, they want a statutory pay policy so they would govern the wages of everybody without proper negotiation. I think they're a very hard right party and I think the Labour Party which has now got a decent policy as a result of all the work we’ve done is going to pick up a lot of support this year."

"I do not think we have a free press in Britain today. There is not a single newspaper that I can buy, not one in Britain that reflects my political position. And The Times, dare I say to you, is really disreputable. It does not print truthfully and faithfully what happens and it pretends, because it is printed in small print that it is above argument. But it is a political propaganda instrument like The Sun, but it is printed in rather better print and rather shrewder language."

"I tell the Prime Minister that this is an ill-thought-out enterprise and will not achieve the purposes to which it is put."

"When it comes to it, we shall have to make sovereignty negotiable, either by ceding it to the United Nations or arranging a transfer in some other way... Do not use that as an excuse for war. We cannot kill for flags today."

"He (John Ball) was preaching socialism long before Marx, Stalin or Brezhnev. He said things would not go well for England until all property was held in common. He was hanged, they cut his stomach out and he was drawn and quartered, his body cut into four pieces. That was the way they treated the Militant Tendency in 1381."

"The House of Commons represents only one third of the legislative structure, which under our unwritten constitution consists of the 'Queen in Parliament' within which the Crown prerogatives and the real powers of the House of Lords still play a significant part. Only the House of Commons represents the people and it is the only democratic arena in which Labour can win a majority... The fact is that the British constitution, parliamentary system and machinery of government are far from democratic in both theory and practice and they are full of obstacles for those who want to use them to bring about reform by democratic means. The Crown prerogatives, most of which are exercised by ministers, confer immense powers which can, if abused, frustrate the wishes of the electorate... The use of either prerogative power in a controversial manner in Britain would draw the monarchy into the heart of the political debate."

"Establishment necessarily involves a subtle corruption of the spirit of the church because it is safely embedded in the wider establishment of society, which includes the privileged and the powerful... How can those Christians who see monetarism being so cruelly applied to the old, the sick, the homeless, women, the black community, and the young unemployed, lead a struggle against this injustice from within an established church subject to a Cabinet and a parliamentary majority composed of those very people who are responsible for implementing those very policies?"

"The general election of 1983 has produced one important result that has passed virtually without comment in the media. It is that, for the first time since 1945, a political party with an openly socialist policy has received the support of over eight and a half million people. This is a remarkable development by any standards and it deserves some analysis."

"[T]he 1983 Labour manifesto commanded the loyalty of millions of voters and a democratic socialist bridge-head in public understanding and support can be made."

"We are socialists because we believe that these rights cannot be fully realised in any society under capitalism, which, as in Britain now, has entrenched by law, the power of Capital over Labour, and subordinated human values to the demand for profit, at the expense of social justice and peace."

"Following the horrific news of the earthquake in Armenia, the response orf sympathy and understanding is amazing, with the Soviet Embassy open for gifts and messages. Gorbachev’s unilateral announcement of cuts of half a million troops has put Russian diplomacy right at the top, has ended the Cold war at a stroke and may bring hope to millions. What is so absurd is that the British defence policy is based on building bombs which would create a tragedy ten times as great as the earthquake and we are pouring money in to help Armenia. It is totally contradictory. The Labour Party has absolutely failed to think anything out. Caroline said disarmament will lead capitalism to collapse and could lead socialism to prosper, and I think she’s right."

"People say that if we work for the Single European Act, women will get their rights, the water will be purer, and training will be better. That is rubbish. It is part of the attempt to consolidate the EEC."

"It would be inconceivable for the House to adjourn for Easter without recording the fact that last Friday the High Court disallowed an Act which was passed by this House and the House of Lords and received Royal Assent — the Merchant Shipping Act 1988. The High Court referred the case to the European Court...I want to make it clear to the House that we are absolutely impotent unless we repeal Section 2 of the European Communities Act. It is no good talking about being a good European. We are all good Europeans; that is a matter of geography and not a matter of sentiment. Are the arrangements under which we are governed such that we have broken the link between the electorate and the laws under which they are governed? I am an old parliamentary hand — perhaps I have been here too long — but I was brought up to believe, and I still believe, that when people vote in an election they must be entitled to know that the party for which they vote, if it has a majority, will be able to enact laws under which they will be governed. That is no longer true. Any party elected, whether it is the Conservative party or the Labour party can no longer say to the electorate, "Vote for me and if I have a majority I shall pass that law", because if that law is contrary to Common Market law, British judges will apply Common Market law."

"I suppose I ought to put my reflections down. It was a remarkable two days. The NEC has abandoned socialist aspirations and any idea of transforming society; it has accepted the main principles not only of capitalism but of Thatcherism, and it thinks that now the Party has a chance of winning office."

"I have five questions that I ask people who have power, and I recommend them to the House. If I see someone who is powerful, be it a traffic warden, Rupert Murdoch, the head of a trade union or a Member of Parliament, I ask myself these five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How can we get rid of you?" That last question is crucial. We cannot get rid of Jacques Delors; we cannot get rid of the [European] Commission. We can get rid of a Government; but we cannot get rid of European legislation that a Government have entrenched during their period in office—be they a Labour Government with the Tories coming or the other way around."

"The Labour party believes in the traditional values of society—in the idea that we have responsibilities one to another and that we are not just greedy all the time, looking out only for ourselves. Without being personal, the philosophy that has been propagated over the past 10 years has been wicked and evil...to set man against man, woman against woman and country against country and to build on nationalism and racism...and all the damage that has been done by the Conservatives has been disgraceful...I have a measure called the Margaret Thatcher (Global Repeal) Bill...It would be easy to reverse the policies and replace the personalities—the process has begun—but the rotten values that have been propagated from the platform of political power in Britain during the past 10 years will be an infection—a virulent strain of right-wing capitalist thinking which it will take time to overcome."

"All war represents a failure of diplomacy."

"I’ve been in Parliament for forty-one years. I’ve been in the Soviet Union many, many times, to Moscow, and I love it; but I hope you will not equate democracy with capitalism, because capitalism imposes great hardship on people."

"Capitalism and British imperialism have exploited the world; and what I fear is that the only form of capitalism you could have would be a military form of capitalism, like Pinochet’s in Chile."

"If democracy is destroyed in Britain it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights."

"The word 'socialism' on my poster has not lost me a single vote. People will support you if you're serious. My complaint about the Labour movement is that it hasn't done any teaching for 40 years; it has always been on the defensive. Thatcher was successful because she was a teacher. Her values, of course, were rotten."

"The plain fact is that every single policy that has been attempted by British cabinets has failed — partition, Stormont, power sharing, direct rule, internment without trial, "supergrass" trials, CS gas, strip searching, even the Anglo-Irish Agreement. ... I have long held the view that what we are discussing is not so much an Irish problem as a British problem in Northern Ireland. ... The real problem can be traced to the continued British presence in Northern Ireland. ... by the end of the century I believe Britain will have withdrawn from Northern Ireland just as it has done from so many colonies in the past."

"Had a long talk to the Chinese First Secretary at the embassy — a very charming man called Liao Dong — and said how much I admired Mao Tse tung or Zedong, the greatest man of the twentieth century. He said that I couldn't admire Mao more than he did. I asked him how Mao was viewed now. He said Mao was 70 per cent right and 30 per cent wrong; the Cultural Revolution didn't work. He said he had been named after Mao — it was amusing."

"War is easy to talk about; there are not many people left of the generation which remembers it. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup [sc., Edward Heath] served with distinction in the last war. I never killed anyone but I wore uniform. I was in London during the blitz in 1940, living where the Millbank tower now stands, where I was born. Some different ideas have come in there since. Every night, I went to the shelter in Thames house. Every morning, I saw docklands burning. Five hundred people were killed in Westminster one night by a land mine. It was terrifying. Are not Arabs and Iraqis terrified? Do not Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does not bombing strengthen their determination? What fools we are to live as if war is a computer game for our children or just an interesting little Channel 4 news item. Every Member of Parliament who votes for the Government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will. That decision is for every hon. Member to take. In my parliamentary experience, this a unique debate. We are being asked to share responsibility for a decision that we will not really be taking but which will have consequences for people who have no part to play in the brutality of the regime with which we are dealing. On 24 October 1945, [...] the United Nations charter was passed. The words of that charter are etched on my mind and move me even as I think of them. It says: "We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our life-time has brought untold sorrow to mankind". That was that generation's pledge to this generation, and it would be the greatest betrayal of all if we voted to abandon the charter, take unilateral action and pretend that we were doing so in the name of the international community. I shall vote against the motion for the reasons that I have given."

"Having served for nearly half a century in the House of Commons, I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so."

"I heard from Jeremy Corybn in the House of Commons yesterday that the alleged cancellation of the world debt was a complete fraud, because a condition has been imposed that any country that had its debt cancelled had to privatise its assets; so that’s where the money will be made. I mean, if ever the Marxist critique of capitalism was correct, its on this. Somebody wrote in the “New Yorker” the other day, ‘Marx may have been wrong about communism, but he was certainly right about capitalism.’"

"Tony Benn: I’ll tell you the problem. You never interview any of these people. You just show them shouting, fighting and in funny hats, making out they’re a lot of nutters."

"JS: Well we did have a chap at the top of the programme actually."

"TB: Well, I didn’t see that, but in general ‘protest’ is the wrong word; it’s the beginning of a political campaign. That’s how apartheid ended, that’s how men got the vote, it was by putting pressure on parliament."

"JS: Right, do you find yourself identifying with Tony Benn, or is he of a different era and not something you find a resonance with?"

"Paul Mobbs, Cyber-activist: I think we’re all going in the same direction. Campaigning is all about managing change and different views of how we manage that change. People today are using the Internet, much like in the Civil War people used pamphlets. We’ve just moved on and it’s got a lot more technical."

"JS: There’s no real identifiable ideology behind what’s going on here in Seattle, I mean."

"TB: It’s anti-capitalist, it’s anti-capitalist."

"INTERVIEWER: According to one analysis, the economic history of the last 20 years is a story about governments retreating from the marketplace and allowing free markets to reign. Do you buy that?"

"TONY BENN: No. What's happened is big corporations have seized governments and taken them over, making the state much stronger in the interest of corporate finance. That's what has happened. The state in Great Britain is much more powerful than it was when Mrs. Thatcher came to power. She destroyed trade unions, she destroyed local government, she limited free speech, and she recruited a lot of riot police. So the idea that market forces have weakened the state is nonsense. It's been strengthened. The people who control market forces have taken over the state. I met an old governor of Ohio a year ago, and he said to me, "You'll never have democracy while big business buys both parties and expects a payoff from whichever one wins." We're not represented anymore. We're managed on behalf of global capitalism, and that's why in Seattle and Prague and everywhere else in the world, people are beginning to stir, because they realize they're being managed now. Nobody represents them."

"INTERVIEWER: You've talked about the academics and the monetarists and so on. In Great Britain, the charge to undo the welfare state was led by Keith Joseph. Keith Joseph was concerned about a sense of freedom. What's the difference between your sense of freedom and his sense of freedom?"

"TONY BENN: In 1945 in the election, I drove a loudspeaker van around in the campaign, and we went to Covent Garden, and there was a guy called Knocker O'Connell. ... He did a political poem for me, and one line was this: "'F' stands for freedom, what Britain brags about. If you can't afford your dinner, you're free to go without." And that was the sort of freedom that capitalists believed in. You were free to starve if you weren't rich. This idea that keeping people down is the way you get freedom is ridiculous, because the world is dominated by multinational corporations that have never been elected. You can't get rid of them. How do you get rid of Bill Gates? You can't do it. But at least you can get rid of Clinton or Blair or Major or Bush. You can't get rid of corporations. And they are the ones who are dictating what sort of a world we live in. I think capitalism has one thing in common with communism: They both detest democracy. I used to go to Moscow on ministerial visits, and I'd meet the central committee for the Communist Party, and they had not been elected. And I would meet the commissars, and they had not been elected. And then I'd go on a ministerial visit to Brussels, and I'd meet the commissioners; they hadn't been elected. I'd meet the central bankers; they hadn't been elected. Communism and capitalism want to run society from the top, and you're allowed to decide whether your want Bush or Gore or Blair or Major, but you're not allowed to discuss capitalism in Russia or socialism in the West. Do you see what I mean? It's a very interesting thing to observe. Market forces destroy democracy by putting money above the voting machine or the ballot box."

"INTERVIEWER: Would you accept that the British economy by the mid- to late '70s was a mess?"

"TONY BENN: Well, I think there were a lot of problems. There was the oil crisis, and we may have another one. We're talking, remember, about the end of the year 2000. With a war in the Middle East, rising oil prices could throw the whole world economy into collapse again. So you have to recognize, as [Prime Minister Harold] Macmillan once said, that events can often change things. But what we did at the end of the war, to employ everybody, was a remarkable achievement. We built 400,000 houses. We built a health service, absolutely free when you needed it. You paid for it when you were well, and you got it for free when you were ill. Everything. No charge for spectacles or prescriptions or anything. That was a huge advance in human improvement. And now, increasingly, they're trying to privatize the health service so the rich will be able to afford to be looked after, but other people won't."

"INTERVIEWER: But the nationalized industries, do you think they were a success in the late '70s?"

"TONY BENN: Well, they were much better than what was there before, and they were better than what we have now. I mean, the pits, the mining industry has been privatized, and there are no pits left, and we've got 1,000 years of coal under our territory. When I was minister of energy, secretary of state by the time I left office, one-quarter of the North Sea was owned by the government. [It was owned by the] BNOC, British National Oil Corporation. It's all been sold off by Thatcher. So in the middle of the fuel crisis, you suddenly realize that the policies being pursued by a socialist government were in the interests of the public. And people see that now, you know. They're beginning to understand it now. But during the Cold War, of course, what they said was if you're against capitalism you must be an agent for the KGB; you must be working for the Kremlin; we're about to be invaded by the Red Army -- all of which was rubbish, but they used that to frighten people away from policies that really were in their own interest."

"We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role."

"The big question today is 'Will globalisation allow democracy to survive?' On one side we have the multinationals, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. I want to help to redress the balance on the other side."

"I was the first MP to table a motion condemning apartheid in South Africa. When I first met Nelson Mandela he was a terrorist, when I next saw him, he was a Nobel Prize winner and the President of South Africa."

"The issues raised in the historic conflict between Charles I, resting his claim to govern Britain on the divine right of kings, and Parliament - representing, however imperfectly, a demand for the wider sharing of power - concerned the use and abuse of state power, the right of the governed to a say in their government, and the nature of political freedom. The Levellers grew out of this conflict. They represented the aspirations of working people who suffered under the persecution of kings, landowners and the priestly class, and they spoke for those who experienced the hardships of poverty and deprivation. They developed and campaigned, first with Cromwell and then against him, for a political and constitutional settlement of the civil war which would embody principles of political freedom, anticipating by a century and a half the ideas of the American and French revolutions."

"Well I came across Marx rather late in life actually, and when I read him, two things: first of all I realised that he'd come to the conclusion about capitalism which I'd come to much later, and I was a bit angry he'd thought of it first; and secondly, I see Marx who was an old Jew, as the last of the Old Testament Prophets, this old bearded man working in the British Library, studying capitalism, that's what 'Das Kapital' was about, it was an explanation of British capitalism. And I thought to myself, 'Well anyone could write a book like that, but what infuses, what comes out of his writing, is the passionate hostility to the injustice of capitalism. He was a Prophet, and so I put him in that category as an Old Testament Prophet."

"People at the top do not want to share their power. They’ve always got some marvellous reason: I’m following my religion; I’m following the laws of economics. Even Stalin: I’m representing the vanguard of the working class, so please don’t cause trouble. That is the battle that every generation has, and yet we mustn’t be pessimistic about it..."