Brendan O'Neill (columnist)

Brendan O'Neill is a British pundit and author. He was the editor of Spiked from 2007 to September 2021, and is its "chief political writer". He has been a columnist for The Australian, The Big Issue, and The Spectator.

Once a Trotskyist, O'Neill was formerly a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and wrote for the party's journal Living Marxism. In 2019, O'Neill said he was a Marxist libertarian.

Career
He began his career at Spiked's predecessor, Living Marxism, the journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which ceased publication after ITN won their libel action following Living Marxism accusing ITN of misrepresenting a picture of a prison camp during the Bosnian war.

Since then, O'Neill has contributed articles to publications in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia including The Spectator, the New Statesman, BBC News Online, The Christian Science Monitor, The American Conservative, Salon, Rising East and occasionally blogged for The Guardian, before moving to The Daily Telegraph. He writes a column for The Big Issue in London and The Australian in Sydney. He also writes articles for The Sun.

Northern Ireland
O'Neill is a supporter of a united Ireland. He was critical of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA supported. O'Neill wrote, in a 1998 issue of Living Marxism, "The new peace deal is a disgrace... The biggest losers in all this are the republican movement... [W]hat exactly will the republican communities gain at the end of their 25-year struggle? Sinn Fein and the IRA have not just agreed to down arms. They have effectively signed away everything they once stood for, accepting that there will not be a united Ireland."

Environmentalism
O'Neill has said that the environmental movement has become a "religious cult" that is "waging war on the working class". He was later criticised for comments about the Swedish environmentalist activist Greta Thunberg. O'Neill has described warnings concerning overpopulation as a "Malthusian" interference in a women's right to reproductive freedom. In 2020, in relation to COVID-19, he has argued that "this pandemic has shown us what life would be like if environmentalists got their way".

Brexit
In September 2019, he said on the BBC's Politics Live that British people should be rioting about delays to Brexit. He said: "I'm amazed that there haven't been riots yet." When asked by guest presenter Adam Fleming: "Do you think there will be riots?", O'Neill responded: "I think there should be." In October 2019, 585 complaints about him calling for riots were dismissed by the BBC's executive complaints unit.