BY M.L.R. SMITH & NIALL McCRAE

From ‘leftwing firebrand to right-wing conspiracy theorist’. That, according to the Spectator, is the trajectory of the celebrity figure of Russell Brand. In March 2023, having completed a tour of the United States, Brand appeared on talk shows such as The Joe Rogan Experience, The Rubin Report, Tucker Carlson Today and Bill Maher’s Real Time and Club Random. Famed as a louche comedian and actor, Brand was in such demand because of his turn to controversial social commentary. On returning to the UK, however, Brand was greeted with the Spectator article penned by John Sturgis, decrying him as an attention-seeking ‘shyster’ and ‘a prominent conspiracy theorist spouting all manner of often dangerous nonsense to his millions of YouTube followers’.

The subsequent Spectator TV interview with Sturgis could hardly have been less enlightening, as the long-time Fleet Street journalist had not engaged in any serious way with Brand’s evolving viewpoint. Instead, Sturgis was convinced that Brand has always been a charlatan, and that he has sought to rebrand himself from drugged-up actor to intellectual sage. The belittling tone of the interview between Sturgis and the Spectator’s deputy features editor Gus Carter spurred numerous readers’ comments on the blatant character assassination. Professional jealousy towards a man whose YouTube channel has over six million subscribers, in contrast to the Spectator’s meagre 186 thousand, was seen as a probable factor. But many comments observed the main reason for mainstream media disdain, which was the audacity of an influential internet personality to ask awkward questions.

The transition of Brand from shallow hedonist into something more profound did not happen overnight. And he is not speaking to a wholly different audience than before. He has probably lost some followers stuck in left-wing tribalism and woke ideology, but many others will have travelled the same intellectual journey as their protagonist. As a cultural phenomenon, Brand is not necessarily a discoverer of new truths but a perceptive seer amid declining trust in official narratives. He is a symptom as much as he is a cause.

Back in October 2013 on Newsnight, Brand was criticised as a facile loudmouth, blustering about the illusion of political choice and the evils of ‘corporate and economic exploitation’. But he was lauded by the liberal-left intelligentsia after his December 2014 clash with Nigel Farage on Question Time over immigration, despite Farage and audience members getting the better of him. Recent converts of Brand may have previously been irritated by this ‘champagne revolutionary’ who railed against the Tories and the inequities of capitalism while conspicuously enjoying the wealth that fame brought him.

Yet Brand demonstrated his capacity for personal growth by beating a serious drug habit. After a successful acting career, he launched a podcast series and YouTube channel to amplify his call for new forms of political engagement. Although his early forays in political debate showed his weaknesses, Brand was determined to pursue his rhetorical commitments. Gradually he amassed an internet following, proving himself as an interviewer of gravitas with notable subjects such as Jordan Peterson. The fundamental idea of his podcast series ‘Under the Skin’ was to present a wide range of opinions to deepen understanding through lively debate. In December 2018, when Brand interviewed outspoken American conservative commentator Candace Owens he shattered sceptical assumptions by conducting himself as a clever, informed and sympathetic interviewer, engaging Owens on her own terms but pushing back intelligently, critiquing her positions in a funny but chivalrous manner. The result was a thoughtful and reflective discussion so often lacking in the contemporary media landscape.

While pinpointing Brand’s political position is elusive, a left-wing communitarianism, rather than any overtly libertarian ethos, pervades his monologues. His languorous, long-haired demeanour makes him seem like a relic of a 1960s Californian commune. Such a hippy analogy may discredit Brand as a latter-day Maharishi-like guru, a fraudulent mystic, leading his gullible cult followers on a path of uncertain or dangerous destiny. A more benign interpretation is that Brand is reviving the free thought of the Age of Aquarius. Unlike intolerant and divisive woke ideology, Brand promotes humanistic awakening to the formal and informal systems of power in society.

Brand reflects the animating spirit of 1960s radicalism: fiercely independent, anti-authoritarian and suspicious of self-serving political and business elites. It is the political tradition that spans thinkers from C Wright Mills in the 1950s, Noam Chomsky in the 1960s and 1970s, to Richard Rorty and Christopher Lasch in the 1980s and 1990s, maintained by journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, Lee Fang and Thomas Fazi.

The willingness of Brand to speak truth to power drew interest from disillusioned people on the Right, who found to their surprise that he was expressing their concerns of political marginalisation, economic impoverishment, and cultural exclusion by virtue-signalling metropolitan elites. After a frantic Establishment reaction to the democratic shocks of Brexit and Donald Trump, Brand’s disposition to understand rather than mindlessly condemn those who stand up to authority gained him a new legion of fans from across the political spectrum. His trenchant scepticism towards the Covid-19 pandemic regime raised his profile further. Brand’s systematic probing into the shady nexus of Big Pharma and government that removed civil liberties and suppressed legitimate dissent, consolidated his stature.

Inevitably, Brand’s growing presence as a political commentator drew the indignation of the pro-state media. A New Statesman article in March 2023 claimed that during his appearance on Bill Maher’s show he had ‘launched into a tinny rant that encompassed every right-wing signalling trope’ (curiously, some of the ‘tropes’ cited were once regarded as left-wing causes, such as support for imprisoned journalist Julian Assange). The title of the article ‘We have lost Russell Brand’ reveals the oppressive conformism in the media, especially those outlets that falsely present themselves as anti-establishment. Brand exposes the failings of mainstream journalists; their inability to hold power accountable, and their willingness to be used as accomplices to official, often authoritarian, agendas.

Moreover, Brand confronts the hypocrisy and pretensions of mainstream news outlets with inspired wit. Following two attack pieces in The Independent in March 2022, accusing him of peddling conspiracy theories and ‘poorly-sourced controversy mongering’, he pointed out that the newspaper was partly funded by businesses linked to the Saudi government. He declared: ‘If you’re called The Independent and you’re funded by the Saudi Arabian state, you ain’t even got past the title without lying’.

The most important reason why Brand spooks the establishment is that his appeal to the disaffected, whether of Left or Right background, speaks to an emerging movement of ‘transpolitics’, which threatens the political binaries that have traditionally enabled the powers-that-be to divide and rule. Transpolitics is unsettling because the fostering of a shared consciousness and cross-political solidarity panics political, media and business elites who perceive a challenge to their power and ideological grip. In one of his most potent monologues, Brand asserted: –

‘The mainstream media is not your friend. The culture is not your friend. The government is not your friend. Big business is not your friend. They are operating collegiately, in unison, to create a set of systems that are beneficial to them and disadvantage you’.

The by-now routine brickbats directed towards Brand from formerly left-wing quarters like the Independent, New Statesman and the Guardian is somewhat ironic given that his imprecations about the consequences of unfettered capitalism are more in tune with left-wing Democrat Bernie Sanders than Donald Trump. But the likes of Sanders and Trump, while attacking globalisation, economic injustice and misguided foreign wars from opposite ends of the spectrum, coalesce in having something interesting to say about institutional power crushing the livelihood of ordinary citizens.

A consistent theme in Brand’s messaging is that political labels of Left and Right are redundant, and that the only meaningful division is between rulers and the ruled. It is absurd to refer to outlets like the Guardian as left-wing, when they side with big business, support unaccountable transnational bureaucracies like the EU, cheer for military adventurism, denigrate the working class, and support policies that exacerbate income inequalities such as ‘Net Zero’. They are really instruments of corporate control, facilitating the transfer of wealth from the poor to the already rich.

Brand thus calls for a transformation in language and dialogue. He invites his audience to contribute to the generation of new narratives. His monetised social media channels are lucrative, but he uses this income to employ backroom staff and researchers who enable him to keep up-to-date and informed. Converts of free-market conservative bent are unlikely to envy pecuniary reward for a cheeky Essex lad made good. He is a shrewd businessman because he connects with people who lead normal lives outside the political and media bubble, voicing their underlying frustrations and concerns in a humorous and engaging manner.

Brand’s success affirms that you do not need a private school education or a degree from a Russell Group university to speak with insight and intelligence on matters of importance. In that respect, he is an affront to the graduate media class, whose careers are built as much on patronage networks as discernible talent. Rudimentary class prejudices underlie mainstream media criticisms of Brand. That he is more popular confirms that privileged presenters are not quite as brilliant as they think. Pushing trite, curated narratives, they accuse those who don’t agree with them of misinformation and describe any counter-narrative movement as ‘far-right’. They do not hold the ruling elites to account because they are aspiring members of the ruling elite.

A remote political and media orthodoxy, which has nothing novel or useful to say, has produced a vacuum that Brand fills. Listeners find him alluring and empowering; he genuinely affords respect to views disparaged by legacy media, while he explores potential human flourishing through open communication. Brand refers to his subscribers as ‘awakening wonders’, in contrast to the nihilistic woke (who are useful idiots for the establishment). On a redemptive endeavour he is on the same track as the philosopher of mindfulness Eckhart Tolle, whose The Power of Now and A New Earth (and whom Brand interviewed in June 2020), guide individual reformation through spiritual awareness, reflection and personal responsibility. The invitation to participate in dialogues that transcend stale political divisions is attractive to Brand’s followers in a materialist, disenchanted condition of secular modernity.

Brand’s simple but powerful message for heightened awareness doesn’t necessarily offer much prospect for radical political change. But his followers learn that while they cannot readily change the system, they can change themselves, and as their number grows, wider reform becomes possible. Regarding conspiracy theory, much of what Brand has brought to attention has turned out to be truths that the establishment wants to hide. Brand is not ‘far right’, but right so far.

Niall McCrae is a Registered Nurse and officer of the Workers of England Union. M.L.R. Smith is a writer and academic. He has worked in higher education for over 30 years, most of which were spent with King’s College London where he rose to become Head of the Department of War Studies between 2016 and 2019. He is the author of numerous publications. His latest book is (with David Martin Jones) The Strategy of Maoism and the West: Rage and the Radical Left (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2022).