Brendan O'Neill (author) facts for kids

Brendan O'Neill is an English writer and commentator. He was the editor of a magazine called Spiked from 2007 until September 2021. He is now the main political writer for Spiked. He has also written columns for newspapers and magazines like The Australian, The Big Issue, and The Spectator.

Brendan O'Neill used to be a Trotskyist, which is a type of political belief. He was part of a group called the Revolutionary Communist Party and wrote for their journal, Living Marxism. In 2019, O'Neill said he believed in something called Marxist libertarianism.

Brendan O'Neill's Career

Brendan O'Neill's parents came from a place called Connemara in west Ireland. He started his writing career at Living Marxism. This journal was connected to the Revolutionary Communist Party. The journal stopped being published after a TV news company, ITN, won a lawsuit against them. Living Marxism had claimed that ITN showed a misleading picture of a prison camp during the Bosnian war.

Since then, O'Neill has written articles for many different publications. These include The Spectator, the New Statesman, and BBC News Online in the United Kingdom. He has also written for The Christian Science Monitor and The American Conservative in the United States. In Australia, he writes for The Australian. He also writes a column for The Big Issue in London and articles for The Sun. He used to write for The Guardian blog and later for The Daily Telegraph.

Brendan O'Neill's Views

Brendan O'Neill has shared his opinions on many important topics.

Views on Northern Ireland

O'Neill supports the idea of a united Ireland. This means he believes Northern Ireland should join with the Republic of Ireland. He did not agree with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. This agreement was supported by political groups like Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA. In 1998, O'Neill wrote in Living Marxism that the peace deal was a "disgrace." He felt that the republican movement, which wanted a united Ireland, had given up too much. He wrote that they had "signed away everything they once stood for."

Views on Environmentalism

Brendan O'Neill has strong opinions about the environmental movement. He has said that it has become like a "religious cult." He also believes it is "waging war on the working class." He was criticized for comments he made about the young Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. O'Neill has also said that warnings about overpopulation are a "Malthusian" idea. He believes these warnings interfere with women's right to choose about having children. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he argued that the pandemic showed what life would be like if environmentalists got their way.

Views on Brexit

In September 2019, Brendan O'Neill spoke on a BBC show called Politics Live. He said that British people should be protesting about delays to Brexit. Brexit was the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union. He said he was "amazed that there haven't been riots yet." When asked if he thought there would be riots, O'Neill replied, "I think there should be." In October 2019, 585 complaints were made to the BBC about his comments. However, the BBC's executive complaints unit dismissed these complaints.