Richard Seymour (writer)

Richard Seymour
Born	1977 (age 40–41) Ballymena, Northern Ireland
Occupation	Writer, political theorist
Period	2003–present
Website
leninology.co.uk

Richard Seymour (born 1977) is an Irish Marxist writer and broadcaster, activist and owner of the blog Lenin's Tomb. He is the author of books such as The Meaning of David Cameron (2010), Unhitched (2013), and Against Austerity (2014). Seymour was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland to a Protestant family, and currently lives in London. A former member of the Socialist Workers Party, he left the organisation in March 2013. He is currently preparing a PhD in sociology at the London School of Economics under the supervision of Paul Gilroy. In the past he has written for publications such as The Guardian and Jacobin. In 2016, Verso Books published Seymour's Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics.

Commentator

Lenin's Tomb blog and other outlets

The blog Lenin's Tomb began in June 2003 and was listed in 2005 as the 21st-most-popular blog in the United Kingdom. Although run by Seymour, it also has front-page posts from other contributors, including, occasionally, China Miéville. It has been cited by the BBC, The Guardian, Private Eye, and Slate magazine. Seymour writes about "issues such as imperialism, Zionism, Islamophobia and anti-capitalism, and covers strikes and protests with footage, images and reportage".

Beginning in January 2013, Seymour focused his blog on an internal crisis involving allegations of rape committed by a (now former) member of the SWP's central committee, and accepted guest entries from other party members criticising the party leadership's response. He announced his resignation from the SWP on 11 March, and began using the original blog to convey a more thorough account of the party's crisis than hitherto. Writing in The Guardian, Seymour responded to an article by Julie Sherry, a central committee member: "We will take no lessons from the Daily Mail, Sherry says. How right she is. With a record like this, who needs lessons from the Daily Mail?"

Apart from The Guardian, Seymour has written for the London Review of Books, ABC Australia, Al Jazeera, In These Times and other publications. Since September 2014, he has recorded a regular segment for TeleSur English programme, The World Today with Tariq Ali.

The Liberal Defence of Murder

A review by the journalist Gary Younge of Seymour's 2008 book, The Liberal Defence of Murder, which was featured on the book's cover, describes Seymour as "expertly" tracing the descent of liberal supporters of war "from humanitarian intervention to blatant islamophobia". China Miéville praised the book as an "indispensable" guide to the "pre-history and modern reality of the so-called 'pro-war Left'". Owen Hatherley, writing in the New Statesman, praised the book as "a freshly written, heavily footnoted and clearly obsessively researched history of 400 years of the 'decent left'". An Independent on Sunday review described it as "an excellent antidote to the propagandists of the crisis of our times", and a later review in The Independent by the policy director of Save the Children described the book as "timely, provocative and thought-provoking".

A review in The Times praised the book as a "powerful counter-blast against the monstrous regiment of 'useful idiots'" who have "contributed in recent decades to the murderous mess of modern times". On the other hand, columnist Oliver Kamm, writing for his Times blog, disputed the review, accusing Seymour of historiographical distortions. Seymour posted a lengthy reply to Kamm's criticisms on his own blog.

A critical review in The Guardian by Philippe Sands contended that despite the book's "damning material" on the supporters of war, this "potentially important book" was weakened by "the generality" of its conclusions and the failure to concede that there are instances where the use of force is justified. Seymour also responded to this critique on his blog. An enthusiastic review appeared in Resurgence magazine in March 2010, declaiming that: "Richard Seymour's obsessively researched, impressive first book holds its place as the most authoritative historical analysis of its kind". A scholarly review in the Journal of American Studies commended the book's "truly impressive breadth and depth", arguing that it provided "a new European perspective – and a warning – on the left's pragmatic and ultimately shortsighted support for imperialist adventures".

Computer programmer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz praised the book unreservedly in his 2009 review of books: "This book is like a little miracle. I’m not even sure how to describe it, except to say that it turns one’s understanding of history completely upside-down."

A later interview on the literary website, ReadySteadyBook, discussed Seymour's motivations in writing the book, and his responses to critics. He explained that: "The shape the book eventually took, as a genealogy of liberal imperialism, was prompted by the combat clerisy themselves. They were the ones appealing to the legacy of 19th Century liberal imperialism. They were the ones vaunting a kitschy manifest-destinarianism, as well as a muscular determination to visit vengeance on the barbarians. It was they who culled their catchphrases from a disgraced imperial lexicon. Unless I wanted to write a gossipy, huffy polemic in the manner of Nick Cohen's What's Left, I had no choice but to anatomise these discursive strategies from their origins to the present day."

Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens

Main article: Unhitched (book)

Unhitched, published in 2013, focuses on Christopher Hitchens's work on religion, his engagement with British politics and his alleged embrace of American imperialism. Seymour has said of Unhitched, "It is written in the spirit of a trial ... I do attempt to get a sense of the complexity and gifts of the man, but it is very clearly a prosecution, and you can guess my conclusion."

Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics

Main article: Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics

Corbyn, published in 2016, with a second edition published in 2017, is an analysis of Jeremy Corbyn's rise to the leadership of the Labour Party. It has been positively reviewed. Stephen Bush in the New Statesman dubbed it "the finest study of Corbyn yet written". Robert Potts in The Times Literary Supplement described it as "witty and acute political and historical analysis from a position to the left of Corbyn" and "utterly unsentimental" in its analysis. Liam Young in the New Statesman praised it as a "hard-hitting and realistic look at what lies ahead". A Foreign Affairs review characterised it as "essential reading", "by turns inspiring and implausible". It was named among Times Higher Education's books of 2016, and The Observer's '100 best political books'.

Controversial assertions

On 2 September 2015, in Facebook response to a Daily Telegraph column detailing Falklands War veteran and serious burns victim Simon Weston's comments regarding then Labour Party Leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn's plan, Weston believes, to "surrender" the Falkland Islands to Argentina, Seymour commented: "If he knew anything, he'd still have his face".

Under a shared Facebook post, Seymour commented on a video of an Israeli: "He makes me sick. He's a piece of shit. He's standing there complaining that the army isn't helping the colonists keep the Palestinians in their place. Fuck him, they should cut his throat." Tom Peck of The Independent wrote that the Israeli was a "Jewish journalist", whereas Seymour questioned the "journalist" claim and wrote "he turns out to be a settler and hasbara activist, who runs an American-Israeli PR firm".

Seymour was a speaker at a September 2016 event in Liverpool organised by the Momentum group which coincided with the Labour Party's conference in the city. Katie Green, chair of the campaign of Jeremy Corbyn's unsuccessful challenger, Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour leadership election, was quoted by The Independent over Seymour's comments: "These kind of violent and deeply offensive remarks make a mockery of Jeremy's 'kinder, gentler politics.' Jeremy should be condemning his comments".

Seymour wrote a lengthy post in response, as well as a more concise apology. Part of the apology read:

"To be absolutely clear. I do not think that Simon Weston’s injuries deserve ridicule. I emphatically do not think that people who advocate for the West Bank settlers should have their throats cut. I certainly didn’t mention or even consider the ethnicity of the individual in question, and the attempts to imply that this was a factor in the original statement are invidious and dishonest. I at no point sought a public audience for these comments, and never sought to solicit anyone’s anguish. I am, of course, very sorry to anyone who was hurt."

Published works

• 2008 The Liberal Defence of Murder. ISBN 978-1-84467-240-0, Verso Books.
• 2008 "The Genocidal Imagination of Christopher Hitchens", in Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq and the Left. ISBN 0-8147-1687-3, New York University Press.
• 2009 "John Spargo and American Socialism", in Historical Materialism, 17: 2, 2009, pp. 272–285(14).
• 2010 "The War on Terror as Political Violence", in Marie Breen Smyth, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Political Violence, 2010
• 2010 The Meaning of David Cameron. ISBN 978-1-84694-456-7, Zero Books, 2010
• 2011 American Insurgents: A Short History of American Anti-Imperialism. ISBN 978-1-60846-141-7, Haymarket Books.
• 2012 Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens. ISBN 978-1-84467-990-4, Verso Books.
• 2014 Against Austerity. ISBN 9780745333281, Pluto Press, London
• 2014 "Race and the Cold War", in Alexander Anievas, Nivi Manchanda, Robbie Shilliam, eds., Race and Racism in International Relations: Confronting the Global Colour Line, 2014
• 2016 Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics. ISBN 978-1784785314, Verso Books, 2016

External links

• Profile at Lenin's Tomb