Frases de Tony Benn

Tony Benn, nacido Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn el 3 de abril de 1925 y muerto el 14 de marzo de 2014,[1]​ fue un destacado político británico del siglo XX, un Laborista de la izquierda del partido, miembro del Parlamento Británico por 47 años y miembro del gabinete entre 1974 y 1979. Se hizo notable cuando su padre William Wedgwood Benn, Viscount Stansgate, murió en noviembre de 1960 porque él heredó el título de su padre y esto significaba que tuvo que sentarse en la Cámara de los Lores y no en la Cámara de los Comunes, donde ya era un miembro. Luchó exitosamente por quedarse en los comunes y por poder renunciar su título, que eventualmente resultó en un cambio a la ley en 1963.

Tony Benn era primo de la actriz Margaret Rutherford.

✵ 3. abril 1925 – 14. marzo 2014
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Tony Benn: 69   frases 0   Me gusta

Tony Benn: Frases en inglés

“I cannot hand away powers lent to me”

Speech in the House of Commons (20 November 1991) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1991/nov/20/european-community-intergovernmental during a debate on the Treaty of Maastricht.
1990s
Contexto: If democracy is destroyed in Britain it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights.

“There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.”

Question Time (22 March 2007).
2000s
Contexto: I was born about a quarter of a mile from where we are sitting now and I was here in London during the Blitz. And every night I went down into the shelter. 500 people killed, my brother was killed, my friends were killed. And when the Charter of the UN was read to me, I was a pilot coming home in a troop ship: 'We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.' That was the pledge my generation gave to the younger generation and you tore it up. And it's a war crime that's been committed in Iraq, because there is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.

“If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”

Interview with Michael Moore in the movie Sicko (2007).
2000s

“All war represents a failure of diplomacy.”

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1991/feb/28/the-gulf in the House of Commons (28 February 1991)
1990s

“[Men] who would rather go to jail than betray what they believe to be their duty to their fellow workers and the principles which they hold.”

From an issued statement from Mr. Benn on five dockers imprisoned for contempt of court (21 July 1972)
1970s

“We have confused the real issue of parliamentary democracy, for already there has been a fundamental change. The power of electors over their law-makers has gone, the power of MPs over Ministers has gone, the role of Ministers has changed. The real case for entry has never been spelled out, which is that there should be a fully federal Europe in which we become a province. It hasn't been spelled out because people would never accept it. We are at the moment on a federal escalator, moving as we talk, going towards a federal objective we do not wish to reach. In practice, Britain will be governed by a European coalition government that we cannot change, dedicated to a capitalist or market economy theology. This policy is to be sold to us by projecting an unjustified optimism about the Community, and an unjustified pessimism about the United Kingdom, designed to frighten us in. Jim quoted Benjamin Franklin, so let me do the same: "He who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary security deserves neither safety nor liberty." The Common Market will break up the UK because there will be no valid argument against an independent Scotland, with its own Ministers and Commissioner, enjoying Common Market membership. We shall be choosing between the unity of the UK and the unity of the EEC. It will impose appalling strains on the Labour movement… I believe that we want independence and democratic self-government, and I hope the Cabinet in due course will think again.”

Speech given in the Cabinet meeting to discuss Britain's membership of the EEC, as recorded in his diary (18 March 1975), Against the Tide. Diaries 1973-1976 (London: Hutchinson, 1989), pp. 346-347.
1970s

“An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.”

Interview with Michael Moore in the movie Sicko (2007).
2000s

“The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.”

Speech at Students for a Labour Victory rally, referring to Enoch Powell who was MP for Wolverhampton South West, Methodist Central Hall, London (3 June 1970), as quoted in "Onslaught on Powell by Wedgwood Benn" by Denis Taylor in The Times (4 June 1970), p. 1
1970s

“When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?”

On the same-sex marriage controversy in the Church of England.
"Tony Benn: The glorious revolutionary" http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/3082-tony-benn-the-glorious-revolutionary, The Journal (26 March 2008).
2000s

“Through me the energy policy of the whole Common Market is being held up. Without opening old wounds, it pleases me no end.”

On not attending an EEC meeting in order to attend a Labour rally (12 December 1975), quoted in 'Mr Benn delays EEC meeting', The Times (13 December, 1975), p. 1
1970s

“We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role.”

Speech in the House of Commons (23 October 2000) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/2000/oct/23/election-of-speaker, cited in Adam Tomkins, "What is Parliament for?" in Bamforth N. and Leyland P. (eds.), Public Law in a Multi-Layered Constitution, Oxford, Hart, 2003, p. 53.
2000s

“Having served for nearly half a century in the House of Commons, I now want more time to devote to politics and more freedom to do so.”

Paul Waugh, "Benn retires to spend more time with his politics", The Independent, 28 June 1999, p. 5.
1990s

“Britain's continuing membership of the Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation and the end of our democratically elected Parliament as the supreme law making body in the United Kingdom.”

Letter to Bristol constituents (29 December 1974), reprinted in Tony Benn, 'The Common Market: Loss of Self-Government', in M. Holmes (ed.), The Eurosceptical Reader (Springer, 2016), p. 38
1970s

“It would be inconceivable for the House to adjourn for Easter without recording the fact that last Friday the High Court disallowed an Act which was passed by this House and the House of Lords and received Royal Assent — the Merchant Shipping Act 1988. The High Court referred the case to the European Court…I want to make it clear to the House that we are absolutely impotent unless we repeal Section 2 of the European Communities Act. It is no good talking about being a good European. We are all good Europeans; that is a matter of geography and not a matter of sentiment. Are the arrangements under which we are governed such that we have broken the link between the electorate and the laws under which they are governed? I am an old parliamentary hand — perhaps I have been here too long — but I was brought up to believe, and I still believe, that when people vote in an election they must be entitled to know that the party for which they vote, if it has a majority, will be able to enact laws under which they will be governed. That is no longer true. Any party elected, whether it is the Conservative party or the Labour party can no longer say to the electorate, "Vote for me and if I have a majority I shall pass that law", because if that law is contrary to Common Market law, British judges will apply Common Market law.”

Speech in the House of Commons (13 March 1989) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1989/mar/13/adjournment-easter-and-monday-1-may on the Factortame case
1980s

“When we have a majority we will do it. I think the days of the Lords are quite genuinely numbered.”

On Independent Radio News (12 November 1976), quoted in The Times (13 November 1976), p. 2
1970s

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