Tony Benn: Trending quotes

Tony Benn

Speech in the House of Commons (20 November 1991) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1991/nov/20/european-community-intergovernmental during a debate on the Treaty of Maastricht.
1990s
Context: 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.

“Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.”

Tony Benn

Life , Pleasure

“There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.”

Tony Benn

Question Time (22 March 2007).
2000s
Context: I was born about a quarter of a mile from where we are sitting now and I was here in London during the Blitz. And every night I went down into the shelter. 500 people killed, my brother was killed, my friends were killed. And when the Charter of the UN was read to me, I was a pilot coming home in a troop ship: 'We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.' That was the pledge my generation gave to the younger generation and you tore it up. And it's a war crime that's been committed in Iraq, because there is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.

People , Suicide

“If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”

Tony Benn

Interview with Michael Moore in the movie Sicko (2007).
2000s

Money , People , Help

“All war represents a failure of diplomacy.”

Tony Benn

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1991/feb/28/the-gulf in the House of Commons (28 February 1991)
1990s

War , Failure

“[Men] who would rather go to jail than betray what they believe to be their duty to their fellow workers and the principles which they hold.”

Tony Benn

From an issued statement from Mr. Benn on five dockers imprisoned for contempt of court (21 July 1972)
1970s

Men

“We have confused the real issue of parliamentary democracy, for already there has been a fundamental change. The power of electors over their law-makers has gone, the power of MPs over Ministers has gone, the role of Ministers has changed. The real case for entry has never been spelled out, which is that there should be a fully federal Europe in which we become a province. It hasn't been spelled out because people would never accept it. We are at the moment on a federal escalator, moving as we talk, going towards a federal objective we do not wish to reach. In practice, Britain will be governed by a European coalition government that we cannot change, dedicated to a capitalist or market economy theology. This policy is to be sold to us by projecting an unjustified optimism about the Community, and an unjustified pessimism about the United Kingdom, designed to frighten us in. Jim quoted Benjamin Franklin, so let me do the same: "He who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary security deserves neither safety nor liberty." The Common Market will break up the UK because there will be no valid argument against an independent Scotland, with its own Ministers and Commissioner, enjoying Common Market membership. We shall be choosing between the unity of the UK and the unity of the EEC. It will impose appalling strains on the Labour movement… I believe that we want independence and democratic self-government, and I hope the Cabinet in due course will think again.”

Tony Benn

Speech given in the Cabinet meeting to discuss Britain's membership of the EEC, as recorded in his diary (18 March 1975), Against the Tide. Diaries 1973-1976 (London: Hutchinson, 1989), pp. 346-347.
1970s

People , Law , Hope , Quotes

“People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.”

Tony Benn

Interview with Michael Moore in the movie Sicko (2007).
2000s

People , Thinking

“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.”

Tony Benn

Journal entry for 6 June 1996 in Free at Last!: Diaries, 1991-2001 (2003) p. 371
1990s

“[I am against] the Treaty of Rome which entrenches laissez faire as its philosophy and chooses bureaucracy as its administrative method.”

Tony Benn

Encounter (January 1963).
1960s

“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.”

Tony Benn

Afternoon Plus on ITN (29 January 1982)
1980s

Way , Fashion , Support , Knowledge

“Workers are not going to be fobbed off with a few shares… or by a carbon copy of the German system of co-determination.”

Tony Benn

Speech in Southampton (25 May 1971).
1970s

“[The Labour Party]'s never been a socialist party, but it's always had socialists in it, just as there are some Christians in the Church, it's an exact parallel.”

Tony Benn

Today Programme (10 February 2006).
2000s

“An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.”

Tony Benn

Interview with Michael Moore in the movie Sicko (2007).
2000s

Education , Confidence

“[The Conservatives' Industry Act contains] the most comprehensive armoury of government control that has ever been assembled for use over private industry, far exceeding all the powers thought necessary by the last Labour government…Heath has performed a very important historical role in preparing for the fundamental and irreversible transfer in the balance of power and wealth which has to take place…The whole nature of the mixed economy operating on market forces has been transformed by this quiet revolution in a way that is not yet fully appreciated.”

Tony Benn

'Heath's spadework for socialism', The Sunday Times (25 March 1973), p. 61
1970s

Way , Nature , Wealth

“The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.”

Tony Benn

Speech at Students for a Labour Victory rally, referring to Enoch Powell who was MP for Wolverhampton South West, Methodist Central Hall, London (3 June 1970), as quoted in "Onslaught on Powell by Wedgwood Benn" by Denis Taylor in The Times (4 June 1970), p. 1
1970s

“When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?”

Tony Benn

On the same-sex marriage controversy in the Church of England.
"Tony Benn: The glorious revolutionary" http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/3082-tony-benn-the-glorious-revolutionary, The Journal (26 March 2008).
2000s

Love , Men , Hate , World

“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.”

Tony Benn

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/nov/22/confidence-in-her-majestys-government in the House of Commons (22 November 1990) on the day Margaret Thatcher announced her intention to resign.
1990s

Idea , Thinking , Evil , Time

“Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end.”

Tony Benn

On not attending an EEC meeting in order to attend a Labour rally (12 December 1975), quoted in 'Mr Benn delays EEC meeting', The Times (13 December, 1975), p. 1
1970s

“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.”

Tony Benn

Speech in the House of Commons (23 October 2000) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/2000/oct/23/election-of-speaker, cited in Adam Tomkins, "What is Parliament for?" in Bamforth N. and Leyland P. (eds.), Public Law in a Multi-Layered Constitution, Oxford, Hart, 2003, p. 53.
2000s

War , Business , Time