Louis Allday — Social Imperialism in the 21st century

Owen Jones, Paul Mason & the problem with the UK left

 Owen Jones and Paul Mason are widely considered to be the UK’s pre-eminent left-wing commentators; both appear frequently on television and radio, write regularly for mainstream publications like The Guardian and The New Statesman, have had books published (and subsequently translated into multiple languages) and attract enormous followings on social media: as of August 2018, their Twitter accounts have 742,000 and 597,000 followers, respectively. By many of their detractors on the right, Jones and Mason are depicted as socialists and radicals, members of what is referred to dismissively in the UK as the “looney left.” Indeed, both men claim to be socialists and Marxists of some kind themselves. However, what becomes clear upon a sober analysis of their positions on a wide range of issues is that they are in fact distinctly un-radical, frequently opportunist in nature, and particularly in Mason’s case, openly reactionary and imperialist.…

MR Online
Social Imperialism in the 21st century

Louis Allday