Tony Benn: a Socialist I Liked

Today it was reported that Tony Benn, the
British Labour Party veteran, had died at the age of 88. I’m sad
that he is gone, and I’ll miss his always interesting and
uncompromising commentary on British and global affairs.

Benn had a long and eventful career in British politics, having
become a member of parliament at the age of 25 and serving as a
cabinet minister under Prime Minister Harold Wilson and James
Callaghan. He inherited the title of Viscount Stansgate from his
father, which he later renounced, perhaps not wanting to join what
he
described as the “British Outer Mongolia for retired
politicians.”

Some readers might think it strange for a libertarian to say
that he will be missing a dedicated socialist, but I’m a sucker for
great rhetorical skill, which the Labour Party has almost none of
these days, and I feel like I have lost an ally on the issues of
national sovereignty and peace.

On his blog at The Telegraph, British Conservative
member of the European Parliament
Daniel Hannan wrote that he found himself “choking up” when he
heard of Benn’s death, and notes that despite his absurd views on
economics, Benn opposed institutions such as the monarchy and
organizations such as the European Union, NATO, and the House of
Lords because of their undemocratic nature. Hannan also notes that
Benn was no fan of the Soviet Union, and that, “His socialism was
authentically British, rooted in brass bands and the temperance
movement and working men’s libraries. He never had much time for
the bloodthirsty creeds of foreign enthusiasts.”

As well as standing up for democratic rights, Benn was a staunch
anti-war campaigner, having opposed the Suez war, the Falklands
war, and both U.S.-led wars in Iraq. Benn felt so strongly about
the war in Iraq that he had no problem saying that Tony Blair, a
fellow member of the Labour Party, had committed a war crime.

Benn kept diaries throughout much of his life, and thankfully
many of them
have been published. One day while I was an undergraduate in
Reading, England, I walked into a bookstore to browse. I picked up
one of Benn’s diaries and read a page at random. An hour later I
was still at the store, sitting down next to the bookshelf, still
reading. I am aware that this was bad book store etiquette, but
Benn lived an amazing life, and he wrote about it very well.

Anyone who has been paying attention to British politics in the
last few years must have noticed that the Labour Party does not
have many great speakers within its ranks. Every Wednesday at noon,
Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband stands in the House of Commons and
asks Prime Minister Cameron questions and oftentimes makes the
theatre of Prime Minister’s Question boring, something I used to
think was next to impossible. It is not just Miliband. This week’s
Prime
Minister’s Questions featured Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg
(who was standing in for Cameron, who was in Israel) and Deputy
Leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman. Harman did better than
Miliband, but is still not nearly as impressive as Benn, who knew
how to work the famously combative House of
Commons.

Looking around the Labour Party, and the British socialist
movement more broadly, it is impossible to find anyone that could
come close to filling the space left by Benn, a fact that is both a
testament to Benn but also to the sorry state of the British
left.