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Owen Jones

59 quotes

• “A principled position Scottish Labour could long have adopted is to wholeheartedly back the right of Scotland to national self-determination, without requiring any embrace of independence. In the here and now, that means championing new devolved powers, but also handing Scotland the right to choose the timing of any potential independence referendum.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Can the Union survive Keir Starmer?", The National (20 January 2024).

• “This generation of unemployed is forgotten, but not accidentally so. Much of the media enthusiastically backs the biggest cuts since the 1920s. They have little interest in exposing the human reality: after all, if it is widely realised that the deficit is being paid off with people's futures, then passive acquiescence to austerity can hardly be taken for granted. The Government is counting on the anger and despair of the forgotten generation to remain unseen, contained, confined to the dignified privacy of their homes. But if the forgotten and the lost organise, join forces, and make their voices heard, the Cameron Project could be sent hurtling into reverse.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: My father, and the reality of losing your job in middle age", The Independent (9 March 2012)

• “[Jones' "favourite outed bigot"] That accolade goes to ­disgraced evangelical Ted Haggard, once a familiar fixture in America’s fundamentalist ranters' circuit: a highly well-paid gig, incidentally (it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the gates of Heaven, but the Lord will always make the odd exception). Haggard was a leading backer of a Colorado amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2006. You can see why that might have wound up Mike Jones, the male sex worker he'd been having sex with on a monthly basis for three years, who retaliated by outing one of Time magazine’s top 25 US evangelical preachers. If you’re going to get a bit sloppy with your interpretation of the scriptures, you might as well go the whole hog, which probably explains why Haggard added taking crystal meth to getting jiggy with a member of the same sex.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: When anti-gay bigotry is just another lock on the closet" The Independent (24 June 2013)

• “A few months ago, the BBC asked me to debate with Labour's Simon Danczuk, who supported George Osborne's proposal to make people thrown out of work wait an extra week for benefits. I say "debate", because Mr Danczuk turned up with a few prepared personal attacks, finding me guilty of having lived in "the posh part of Stockport". If it really matters, I grew up in the town's second-most deprived ward: a more accurate ad hominem attack would have been that I grew up in a middle-class family, because my dad was a white-collar local authority worker and my mother was an IT lecturer at Salford University.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Why do so many critics of those of us on the left assume we are consumed by class envy?", The Independent (7 November 2013)

• “There’s structural inequality, and then there are stitch-ups. The scourge of unpaid internships has helped turn professions (such as my own, the media) into playgrounds for the privileged. Want to become a journalist? You may well find yourself expected to work for free for months, or longer, with no promise of a job at the end of it. If you have parents with the financial means, you have a shot, but otherwise the idea of labouring for nothing in London – one of the world’s most expensive cities – is a non-starter. So is shelling out for an expensive post-graduate qualification, which is increasingly a must. The professions have built walls too high for most to climb, discriminating not on the basis of your talent, but on the basis of your parents’ bank balance.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: How to pass the posh test: 'Do you know Marmaduke Von Snittlebert?'" (15 June 2015)

• “There is a long tradition of left figures who are charismatic and deliver rousing speeches but who – like George Galloway – are easily portrayed as demagogic. They can rouse the affections of the already convinced, but few others. When they are the object of personal attacks, they attract little sympathy, and tend to respond in kind. Corbyn, on the other hand, has a good shot at the title of most self-effacing and humble politician in parliament, and certainly for being the lowest expenses claimer among his colleagues. That helps shield him from the personal attacks that are normally dished out to figureheads of the left.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The left's pessimism about the possibility of implementing social reform at home without the help of the EU fused with a progressive vision of internationalism and unity, one that had emerged from the rubble of fascism and genocidal war. It is perhaps this feelgood halo that has been extinguished by a country the EU has driven into an economic collapse unseen since America’s great depression. It was German and French banks who recklessly lent to Greece that have benefited from bailouts, not the Greek economy. The destruction of Greece's national sovereignty was achieved by economic strangulation, [...] this was all about crushing a rebellion.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Let's just be honest about our fears. We fear that we will inadvertently line up with the xenophobes and the immigrant-bashing nationalists, and a “no” result will be seen as their vindication, unleashing a carnival of Ukippery. Hostility to the EU is seen as the preserve of the hard right, and not the sort of thing progressives should entertain. And that is why – if indeed much of the left decides on Lexit – it must run its own separate campaign and try and win ownership of the issue. Such a campaign would focus on building a new Britain, one of workers' rights, a genuine living wage, public ownership, industrial activism and tax justice. Such a populist campaign could help the left reconnect with working-class communities it lost touch with long ago.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We have a moral duty to offer support and safety to LGBT people fleeing repression for which Britain shares responsibility. ... It is now Pride season in Britain. Members of the government will wrap themselves in the and issue self-congratulatory statements about how far LGBT rights have come. Don’t let them get away with it. Gay and lesbian refugees are being detained and deported to countries where their safety is at risk, even their lives. The should lead to a much wider conversation about the persecution of migrants and refugees. ... The architects of the helped construct anti-gay laws across the globe that still endure today. The victims of such persecution need our support. Instead, they are being terrorised. It is a national scandal – and the silence over it must end.”

  Owen Jones (born 1984) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The government’s treatment of gay refugees shames Britain" (7 June 2018).