Anthony Barnett (writer)

Anthony Barnett
Anthony Barnett in 2024
Born	November 1942
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Cambridge University
Occupation	Journalist
Known for	Co-founder of openDemocracy
Partner	Judith Herrin

For other people named Barnett, see Anthony Barnett and Antony Barnett.

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 ,Prospect. and Byline Times.

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.

Barnett founded openDemocracy, which was launched in 2001, with Paul Hilder, Susie Richards and David Hayes, and was its Editor and then its Editor-in-Chief until 2007. He was a member of the Board of openDemocracy Ltd from 1999 to 2023. 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 openDemocracy in the run-up to Britain's 2016 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 graduates 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 made a short film in 2022 on American politics: US Progressives on a Knife Edge and in August 2024 he wrote an article about the dangers of surveillance in The Washington Spectator entitled Switch It Off!

Personal life

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

Bibliography

• Barnett, Anthony & John Pilger (1982). Aftermath : the struggle of Cambodia & Vietnam. London: New Statesman.
• Iron Britannia, Why Parliament Waged its Falklands War (1982), ISBN 978-0-85031-493-9
• Soviet Freedom (1988), ISBN 978-0-09-175871-4
• Debating the Constitution (1992), with Caroline Ellis and Paul Hirst, ISBN 978-0-7456-1199-0
• Power and the Throne (1994), drawn from the Charter 88 monarchy debate, ISBN 978-0-09-939311-5
• This Time - Our Constitutional Revolution (1997), ISBN 978-0-09-926858-1
• Town and Country (1999), edited with Roger Scruton, ISBN 978-0-224-05254-2
• The Athenian Option, Radical reform of the House of Lords, with Peter Carty (2008), ISBN 978-1-84540-139-9
• Barnett, Anthony (22 March 2016). Blimey, it Could be Brexit! [1]. openDemocracy – via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
• The Lure of Greatness: England's Brexit and America's Trump (2017), ISBN 978-1-78352-453-2
• Taking Control!: Humanity and America After Trump and the Pandemic (2022), ISBN 9781914420269
• David Chandler & Anthony Barnett (2024). The Uncrowned King of Cambodia - The Life of Lt Col E D (Moke) Murray. Australia: Kerr Publishing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Victoria. ISBN 978-1-875703-59-3.

Introductions and Forwards

• Introduction to Architect or Bee? by Mike Cooley, Hogarth Press, 1987; ISBN 9780701207694
• Introduction to The Break-Up of Britain by Tom Nairn, Verso, Third Edition 2021, ISBN 978-1-78168-320-0
• Forward to The Long Revolution by Raymond Williams, Parthian Books, 2011, ISBN 978-1-908069-71-9
• Forward: A Fight For The Future to Fight Back! A Reader in the Winter of Protest edited by Dan Hancox, openDemocracy, February 2011, ISBN 978-0-9556775-9-5

Essays

Democracy and the machinations of mind control [2]. NYR Daily The New York Review of Books. 14 December 2017

External links

• Journalisted - Articles by Anthony Barnett.
• Anthony Barnett at Authory.
• The Convention on Modern Liberty.