Labour Conference 2025: The John McDonnell Interview

In the Labour Conference 2025 Labour Left Podcast edition, Bryn Griffiths speaks to the Labour left leader John McDonnell of the Socialist Campaign Group.

The in-depth interview with John explores what thinking lies behind his decades of socialist activity. It arguably gives us the deepest understanding yet of John’s political practice as a truly organic intellectual.

We start by talking about his podcast A People’s History which echoes the themes of a previous Labour Left Podcast with Prof Harvey J Kaye. We then discuss a range of socialist authors such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Ernest Mandel and Ralph Miliband.

The figure that keeps coming up again and again in the interview is the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. It’s fascinating to hear how John’s political practice draws upon concepts such as the war of position and the organic intellectual. I think you’ll conclude that Fergal Kinney, the Tribune culture editor, was spot on when he dubbed John the “Gramscian back-bencher”.

John McDonnell is known for his excellent work on Ireland. So, we talk about his role in the dialogue with Sinn Fein in the 1980s and he takes up Geoff Bell’s call for truth and conciliation based on the actions of the British state in the Troubles.

Keeping on the subject of the British state, we have a fascinating discussion about George Osborne’s recent podcast where he referred to Chris Mullin’s 1980s book A Very British Coup. We find out what light the left’s erstwhile ally Reg Race threw upon the murky goings on in the Parliamentary Labour Party. What would the British establishment and Parliamentary Labour Party have done if Jeremy Corbyn had got those few extra votes and got us over the line in 2017? John has the answers.

As you would expect, the interview then gets contemporary. John talks about Gaza and Atlanticism; considers the kind of Left we need; expands upon his argument that Labour faces an existential threat; gives his view on PR; pronounces on the Mandelson scandal; and, laments the paucity of choice in the Deputy Leadership campaign.

Finally, John comes up with an inspirational Class Hero of the Month and leaves us with a great reading list to get stuck into.

If you’re new to the Labour Left Podcast, please take a good look at our back catalogue as nearly all the episodes were designed to be timeless contributions to debates on the left. The last episode was with socialist feminist Lynne Segal of Beyond the Fragments; a recent episode interviewed John’s comrade Richard Burgon of the Socialist Campaign Group; previous episodes have looked at the fight for a United Ireland with historian Geoff Bell; a conversation with Compass’s Neal Lawson; Rachel Shabi talking about her book The Truth About Antisemitism; Bernard Regan of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign; Prof Harvey J Kaye on the legacy of the Communist Historians; Prof Corinne Fowler, talking about her book Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain; Andrew Fisher telling the story behind For the Many Not the Few Labour’s 2017 manifesto; Jeremy Gilbert, a Professor of Cultural and Political Theory, a champion of Gramsci, talking about Thatcherism; episodes with Mish Rahman, Rachel Godfrey Wood and Hilary Schan on the contemporary Labour Left; Mike Phipps, author of Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow, taking a long term look at the Labour Left; Mike Jackson, co-founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, on the Great 1984-85 Miners’ Strike; political activist Liz Davies telling her story as the dissenter within Blair’s New Labour; Rachel Garnham, a current co-Chair of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy looking back at the history of the fight for democracy in the British Labour Party; and finally myself telling the story of Brighton Labour Briefing, a local Bennite magazine in the 1980s.

Next up in our October episode will be Mark Perryman the editor of the excellent new book The Starmer Symptom. Hit subscribe on YouTube, Substack or your favourite podcast platform.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts here, Audible here, Substack here and listen to it on Spotify here. You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive.

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast. You can find all the episodes of the podcast here or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.

To make it easier for you to find the Labour Left Podcast here are some links:

You Tube