Anthony Barnett (writer)

Anthony Barnett (born November 1942 ) is a modern English writer and campaigner. He was a co-founder of openDemocracy in 2001.

Biography
Barnett was a student at Cambridge University, where he was active in the Labour Club, and lodged with Nicholas Kaldor.

A former member of the editorial committee of New Left Review, Barnett has written for the New Statesman, The Guardian and Prospect.

He conceived the television film England's Henry Moore (1988), which concerned the sculptor's co-option by the British establishment.

He was the first Director of Charter 88, from 1988 to 1995, and Co-Director of the Convention on Modern Liberty (2008–2009) with Henry Porter.

In 2001, Barnett founded openDemocracy with Paul Hilder, Susie Richards and David Hayes and was its Editor and then its Editor-in-Chief until 2007. He remains a regular contributor to the website.

Barnett is the author of several books, including Iron Britannia, Why Parliament Waged its Falklands War (first published by Allison & Busby in 1982, reissued by Faber Finds in 2012. In 2016, he serialised Blimey it could be Brexit! publishing a chapter a week in the run-up to Britain's EU referendum about the forces behind the vote. His in-depth evaluation was published by Unbound in 2017 with the title The Lure of Greatness: England’s Brexit and America’s Trump. In 2022, Barnett published Taking Control!: Humanity and America after Trump and the Pandemic with Repeater Books, on the possibilities of a progressive future.

Barnett was awarded an honorary doctorate from The Open University in September 2013, and an honorary doctorate from Goldsmiths University in 2019, when his speech to graduands concluded: "In these dire times asking what you can do for others is the best way to reach out for yourself. This is what Martin Luther King was seeking when he called for the world to be governed by a love that does justice. Cooperation is harder but much more rewarding than competition. It means refusing both to be a victim and to make others your victim. It means sharing your feelings without being ruled by emotion; having empathy for the feeling of others when you don't share them. It means not closing down your identities, for we all have more than one, but allowing them to change and grow. It means using the facility of our digital age to be a co-creator of society and never just a consumer. It means always using the power of your intelligence, including your emotional intelligence, to make the call that matters, to ask what we can do for others – with love and justice.

Barnett has endorsed Joe Biden for re-election in the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, stating that he does not believe Biden to be a racist, as opposed to Donald Trump, whom Barnett has referred to as a "fascist". Citing Biden's enthusiastic appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court, Barnett opines "[he believes] Biden [supports] integration" and thus deserves a second term.

Personal life
Barnett lives with his partner Judith Herrin; the couple have two daughters, the singer Tamara Barnett-Herrin and Portia Barnett-Herrin.

Essays and reporting

 * Introduction to Architect or Bee? by Mike Cooley, Hogarth Press, 1987; ISBN 9780701207694