menu_open Columnists
Brendan O’neill

Brendan O’neill

The Spectator

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

The invasion of Ceuta

Spain was invaded yesterday. There is no other way to put it. Close to 50,000 foreigners, mostly men, swarmed into Spanish territory and laughed and...

latest 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

We should politicize the Berlin Pride attack

Of all the platitudes trotted out after an Islamist attack, the maddest has to be: ‘Don’t politicise this tragedy.’ The bodies of our fellow...

previous day 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

We should politicise the Berlin pride attack

Of all the platitudes trotted out after an Islamist attack, the maddest has to be: ‘Don’t politicise this tragedy.’ The bodies of our fellow...

27.07.2026 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Jameela Jamil’s Brit bashing is embarrassingly out of date

Poor Jameela Jamil. No one gave her the memo. She thinks it’s still 2021 and that a spot of sassy Britain-bashing will be greeted by a chorus of...

23.07.2026 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Crime / Pakistan and Shabir Ahmed are laughing at Britain

Pakistan is laughing at us. Over the past three years, they’ve deported a staggering 2.4 million Afghans. It was one of the largest expulsions of...

18.07.2026 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Pakistan and Shabir Ahmed are laughing at Britain

Pakistan is laughing at us. Over the past three years, they’ve deported a staggering 2.4 million Afghans. It was one of the largest expulsions of...

17.07.2026 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Why is Nigel Farage under attack for mourning Ann Widdecombe?

So now we have two-tier grieving. Progressives are allowed to mourn lost colleagues, but populists are not. How else to explain the media mauling of...

14.07.2026 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Nigel Farage isn’t the one behaving badly in Clacton

So this is what people mean when they say “Uniparty”. They mean supposed rivals reading from the same corporate script. They mean political...

08.07.2026 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The shame of Pride

Someone shouting “Fuck you, Jews”. Another telling the Jews they’re baby-killers. A man suggesting the Jews should “go back” to their...

07.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Riad Bouchaker’s stab attack was a crime against Ireland

When does a crime against the individual become an assault on an entire nation? This is the harrowing question at the heart of the Riad Bouchaker case...

03.07.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Why won’t the UN believe all women, including Jews?

Why must Jewish women beg to be believed? Why does that sacred mantra of the progressive classes – “Believe women” – suddenly expire when the...

26.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Makerfield rejected the nastiness of Restore

Finally we have an answer to the question: ‘How popular is Rupert Lowe’s party Restore?’ The answer is: ‘Less popular than the BNP.’ Despite...

19.06.2026 20

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Jerry Seinfeld and the dark truth about ‘Free Palestine’

I see Jerry Seinfeld has got the pompous left sobbing into their keffiyehs. His sin? He refused to buckle to their neo-religious mantra ‘Free...

15.06.2026 20

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The vindication of ‘Sophie of Dundee’

So ‘Sophie of Dundee’ has been vindicated. The Scots girl who was so sickeningly defamed by the digital left stands exonerated. ‘Liars!’,...

12.06.2026 40

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Belfast and the truth about ‘alien cultures’

How would you describe a culture where women are flogged in public for ‘inappropriate dress’? A culture where one woman suffered 40 lashes from a...

11.06.2026 10

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Belfast and the truth about ‘alien cultures’

How would you describe a culture where women are flogged in public for ‘inappropriate dress’? A culture where one woman suffered 40 lashes from a...

10.06.2026 20

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Why can we rage against George Floyd’s death but not Henry Nowak’s?

I see that the people who took the knee and tore down statues after a man was killed 4,000 miles away from Britain are now yelping ‘Don’t...

04.06.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Liberty / It’s a bit late for Cenk Uygur’s supporters to cry about free speech

Zack Polanski is fuming over the Home Secretary’s decision to ban two internet-famous Israel haters from the UK. It’s ‘really grim’, he says...

01.06.2026 40

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Restore, the Greens and the rise of Gen Z Jew hate

At first glance, the youth wings of Restore Britain and the Green party would appear to have little in common. The former are angry, undersexed...

29.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Ben-Gvir’s crass gloating isn’t the worst thing about the Gaza flotilla

Imagine if, in 1941, as we were fighting for our lives against the German menace, a boatload of foreign narcissists rocked up at Dover to make fun of...

22.05.2026 20

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Medieval / Why does the BBC think Afghan men are selling their daughters?

If you heard that a man was thinking about selling his seven-year-old daughter into marriage or domestic servitude, who would you feel sorry for? The...

20.05.2026 20

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The voters of Makerfield should give Burnham the boot

The good people of Makerfield have the potential to do the funniest thing. It is in their gift to unleash the most hilarious chaos. With one swipe of...

15.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Why the question ‘Can women have a penis?’ really matters

What’s weirder: asking if a woman can have a penis or being so flummoxed by such a simple query that you start to stutter and sweat and flat-out...

11.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Politics / The truth about Green ‘progressives’

Campus lefties love shouting ‘BIGOT’ at people they disagree with. Anyone who has ever been rounded on by mobs of meat-dodging students hoarsely...

09.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The truth about Green ‘progressives’

Campus lefties love shouting ‘BIGOT’ at people they disagree with. Anyone who has ever been rounded on by mobs of meat-dodging students hoarsely...

08.05.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Why the ‘pro-Palestine’ marches must stop

It is not even a week since that horrific act of violence against Jews in Golders Green, and what is the left calling for? The right to agitate for...

05.05.2026 20

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The Golders Green atrocity is the final straw

It is undeniable now: war has been declared on British Jews. A fascistic crusade is being waged against our Jewish compatriots. The anti-Semitic...

30.04.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The Golders Green atrocity is the final straw

It is undeniable now: war has been declared on British Jews. A fascistic crusade is being waged against our Jewish compatriots. The anti-Semitic...

29.04.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Róisín Murphy and corrosiveness of cancel culture in the arts

In her Reith lecture on freedom in 2022, the great Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warned of the ‘unconscionable barbarism’ of cancel...

29.04.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Is Zack Polanski seriously questioning Jewish safety?

Hey, Jews – have you ever considered the possibility that you’re making a fuss over nothing? That a few petrol bombs through the windows of your...

23.04.2026 50

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Crackdown / Epsom betrays the truth about Britain’s politicised police

Explain this to me. Why is it that a gathering of mostly white working-class men protesting about a rape is met by a line of menacing riot cops, and...

16.04.2026 40

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The lies about Israel’s attack on Hezbollah

Imagine there was a virulently Francophobic militia on the doorstep of the French Republic. Imagine it had fired nearly a hundred thousand missiles...

11.04.2026 40

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

The shameful lies about Israel’s attack on Hezbollah

Imagine there was a virulently Francophobic militia on the doorstep of the French Republic. Imagine it had fired nearly a hundred thousand missiles...

10.04.2026 40

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

Why the keffiyeh classes have forgiven Kanye West

And there you have it. Britain is a country where a musician who says ‘Heil Hitler’ gets to headline festivals while a musician who plays with a...

02.04.2026 40

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill

There’s nothing merciful about Noelia Castillo’s death

This week, in Spain, a rape victim was killed by the state. A young woman in pain and despair was offered not love or justice but death. The...

27.03.2026 30

The Spectator

Brendan O’neill