Claire Fox

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Claire Fox
File:Claire Fox of Moral Maze (cropped).png
Claire Fox in 2013
Member of the European Parliament
for North West England
Taking office
2 July 2019
Leader Nigel Farage
Succeeding Paul Nuttall
Personal details
Born Claire Regina Fox
(1960-06-05) 5 June 1960 (age 64)
Barton-upon-Irwell, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
Nationality British
Political party Brexit (since 2019)
Other political
affiliations		 Independent (1997–2019)
Revolutionary Communist (before 1997)
Relations Fiona Fox and Gemma Fox (sisters)
Parents John Fox and Maura Cleary
Alma mater University of Warwick
University of Greenwich
Occupation Writer and broadcaster
Known for Director and founder of Institute of Ideas

Claire Regina Fox (born 5 June 1960)[1] is a British left-libertarian writer and politician.[2][3] She is the director and founder of the think tank the Institute of Ideas. The Institute of Ideas is a trading name of the Academy of Ideas. She is a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. She is now a registered supporter[4] of the Brexit Party and won a seat for the party[5] in the North West England constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election.

Early life

Fox was born to Irish Catholic parents John Fox and Maura Cleary and is the elder sister of Fiona and Gemma Fox.[6] After attending St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School in Flint, North Wales, she studied at the University of Warwick where she graduated with a lower second class degree (2:2) in English and American Literature.[1] She gained a PGCE from University of Greenwich, then Thames Polytechnic, in 1992.[citation needed]

Career

Fox was a mental health social worker (1981–1987).[7] She was an English Language and Literature lecturer at Thurrock Technical College (1987–1990) and at West Herts College (1992–1999).[7] Fox wrote the book I Find That Offensive! in 2016.[8]

Revolutionary Communist Party

Fox joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) as a student at the University of Warwick.[9] For the next twenty years, she was one of the RCP's core activists and organisers. She became co-publisher of its magazine Living Marxism,[10] which closed in 2000 after it falsely accused ITN of faking evidence of the Bosnian genocide.[11] In 2018, Fox refused to apologise for suggesting evidence of the genocide was faked.[12]

Fox stayed with her ex-RCP members when the group transformed itself in the early 2000s into a network around the web magazine Spiked Online and the Institute of Ideas, both based in the former RCP offices. Author and environmental activist George Monbiot has argued these groups are part of the "pro-corporate libertarian right".[13]

In the media

Fox is a guest panellist on BBC Radio 4's programme The Moral Maze,[7] and has also appeared as a panellist on BBC One's political television programme Question Time.[14] She appears frequently as one of two newspaper review panellists on Sky News.

Fox has been widely criticised and praised for her libertarian belief in the desirability of minimal governmental control and support of free speech in all contexts. In particular, she has been accused of "supporting Gary Glitter’s right to download child porn",[1][15] a claim she denies.[16]

She has also been criticised for rejecting multiculturalism as divisive,[1] questioning the negative publicity surrounding genetically modified crops[17] and denying that there are any natural limits to human activity on the planet with her suggestion that everyone could be as rich as a multi-millionaire.[18]

In April 2019, Fox was criticised by the Morning Star, a socialist daily, and by Robert Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, for her view that the Government of the United Kingdom should not ban people from watching child porn or Jihadi terrorist videos.[19] She has also attracted criticism for her support for the Irish Republican Army in the past.[20] A Brexit Party spokesperson commented on the criticism of their candidate Fox "It's a desperate attempt to cause trouble".[21]

Brexit Party

Fox was in the first position in the list for the Brexit Party in the North West England constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election. [22] The candidacy was announced on 23 April 2019. Her selection was condemned by the father of murdered schoolboy Tim Parry due to her past comments in defence of the 1993 IRA Warrington bomb attacks, which had killed his son, within the North West England constituency.[23] Another candidate for the Brexit Party, Sally Bate, resigned, citing Fox's "ambiguous position" in relation to IRA violence.[24]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/18/nigel-farage-has-near-total-control-of-brexit-party-constitution-suggests
  5. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-48417394
  6. ↑ "Claire and Fiona Fox, sisters", The Sunday Times (May 2006) - An interview with Claire and Fiona Fox
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Turn up the Heat Archived 14 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine event, World Development Movement, 8 May 2008.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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