A verdict, and a political trajectory
On 5 November 2026, a jury at Southwark Crown Court
convicted Russell Brand of one count of rape and three counts of sexual
assault. The jury of eight men and four women, required by Mr Justice Bennathan
to reach unanimous verdicts, acquitted him on two further counts of rape and
one of attempted indecent assault. The convictions relate to offences committed
between 2004 and 2009. The rape conviction concerns a 21-year-old woman whom
Brand met after a performance in west London in 2009.
Brand, 51, denied every charge and was remanded in custody
following the verdict. On 9 November, Mr Justice Bennathan sentenced him to 10
years and six months’ imprisonment. Brand must serve at least two-thirds of the
sentence before becoming eligible for release.
In his sentencing remarks, the judge told Brand that as he
became famous he had also become a“sexual predator”, and said that the offences
demonstrated a disregard for women’s right to refuse sexual contact. The judge
also stressed that the sentence concerned only the offences of which the jury
had convicted Brand and that he disregarded allegations on which the jury had
returned not-guilty verdicts. The Metropolitan Police have said that further
allegations concerning Brand remain under investigation. Those allegations are
separate from the convictions for which he was sentenced and have not been
determined by a court.
The victims are entitled to lifelong anonymity, and this
article does not cover their testimony. What concerns us here is the social and
political figure: the man who, little more than a decade ago, was hailed in
liberal circles as the voice of a disaffected generation, and whose political
evolution subsequently carried him into the orbit of Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk
and the Trump movement.
Brand’s trajectory is not merely a story of personal
collapse. It is a concentrated expression of the bankruptcy of celebrity
“anti-politics”, of the media industry that manufactured and protected him, and
of the decay of a petty-bourgeois radicalism that rejected the working class as
the conscious agent of social change. That Brand could travel in scarcely a
decade from calling for “revolution” on BBC Newsnight to sharing platforms with
figures associated with the American right is itself a devastating commentary
on the politics he represented.
An honest accounting must also be made of the proceedings
against him. When the allegations first became public in September 2023,
following a joint investigation by The Times, The Sunday Times
and Channel 4’s Dispatches, the World Socialist Web Site warned
against trial by media and insisted upon the presumption of innocence. That
principle did not entail declaring Brand innocent. It meant insisting that
criminal guilt could be determined only through established judicial procedures
in which allegations could be tested, and the accused could mount a defence.
That process has now taken place. Brand was charged,
represented by senior counsel, tried before a jury over several weeks,
convicted on some counts and acquitted on others. Each charge had to be
determined according to the evidence relating to it. Whatever criticisms
socialists must make of the capitalist state and judicial system, the
proceedings themselves refute the crude contention circulated by Brand’s
right-wing defenders that a fair trial was simply impossible in Britain.
The celebrity revolutionary, 2013–2015
Brand’s emergence as a political celebrity was facilitated
by the very institutions that he professed to oppose. In October 2013, he
guest-edited the New Statesman and, days later, sat opposite Jeremy
Paxman on BBC Newsnight. Brand said he had never voted, denounced a
political establishment subordinated to corporations, and spoke in favour of a
“socialist egalitarian” society.
The interview was watched millions of times. In the
aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, years of austerity and the Liberal
Democrats’ repudiation of their promises over university tuition fees, Brand’s
denunciations struck a chord with many young people who saw nothing in the
official political establishment that represented their interests.
Sections of the liberal media responded in an instructive
way. Rather than seriously interrogating what Brand meant by revolution, parts
of the press transformed him into a political phenomenon. Prospect
included him among its “World Thinkers” in 2015. His book Revolution,
published in 2014, became a bestseller. His YouTube series The Trews attracted
a large audience, while his involvement in the struggle of tenants at the New
Era estate in Hoxton against eviction by a US investment fund seemed to connect
his rhetoric to genuine social opposition.
Yet the political content of Brand’s “revolution” was always
profoundly confused. It combined elements of anarchism, Eastern mysticism,
self-help and twelve-step recovery culture with hostility towards organised
politics itself. Instead of calling for the construction of an independent
political movement of the working class, he counselled abstention from
conventional politics and elevated personal transformation and local direct
action into substitutes for political programme, organisation and historical perspective.
Capitalism consequently appeared not primarily as a definite
system of property and class relations, founded upon private ownership of the
means of production and production for profit, but as a kind of spiritual and
psychological disorder. Alienation might therefore be overcome through
consciousness, authenticity, community action and individual awakening. Class
in the Marxist sense, as an objective social relationship and the foundation of
political organisation, virtually disappeared.
This perspective's limitations were dramatically exposed
within eighteen months. Days before the May 2015 general election, having
previously encouraged his followers not to vote, Brand interviewed Labour
leader Ed Miliband and urged support for Labour. The supposedly uncompromising rejection
of establishment politics thus ended in an endorsement of the party of Tony
Blair and Gordon Brown, the Iraq War and the deregulated City of London.
The episode revealed something fundamental. Without a
programme, historical analysis or class orientation, radical rhetoric could
swing abruptly from denunciation of the parliamentary system to accommodation
with one of its principal parties. The “revolution” had discovered the ballot
box almost overnight.
From the ‘left’ to the far right
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated Brand’s political
evolution. His enormous online audience had originally been built through
attacks on inequality, corporate power and the political establishment.
Increasingly, however, these themes became entangled with scepticism concerning
vaccination and public-health policies, alongside a growing preoccupation with
vaguely defined “elites”, censorship and the “Deep State”. In 2022, his
programme Stay Free with Russell Brand moved to Rumble, a video platform
that became increasingly associated with conservative and right-wing online
politics in the United States.
Some of Brand’s interventions still contained elements of
genuine opposition to official policy, including criticism of the role of the
United States and NATO in Ukraine. But these positions no longer fit within a
coherent critique of imperialism or capitalism. Instead, opposition to war and
corporate power increasingly coexisted with the themes and personalities of the
American culture wars.
After the allegations against him emerged in 2023, Brand’s
public political and personal identity shifted again. He converted publicly to
Christianity, was baptised in 2024, and increasingly cultivated an audience
among conservative Christians and supporters of the American right. He appeared
with Tucker Carlson and became associated with political environments involving
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Turning Point USA.
The political distance travelled was considerable. A man
once presented by sections of the British liberal establishment as the
charismatic representative of anti-capitalist youth was now being welcomed by
forces associated with Trump’s political movement. Yet this development should
not simply be understood as a betrayal of a previously coherent socialist
politics. No such politics existed to betray. Rather, Brand’s evolution exposed
the inherent instability of his earlier outlook.
A politics that rejected the independent political
mobilisation of the working class, interpreted complex social relations
primarily through the actions of shadowy or corrupt elites, and elevated
individual authenticity above programme and organisation possessed no reliable
political compass. Its language of rebellion could therefore migrate remarkably
easily between ostensibly left-wing and right-wing forms of populism. Under
conditions of deepening social crisis, opposition to “the establishment” ceased
to have any necessarily progressive content. Anti-politics became increasingly
compatible with the politics of reaction.
The trial and the myth of the ‘political prisoner’
After the allegations became public, Brand increasingly
portrayed himself as the victim of an establishment campaign directed against a
dissident voice. Sections of the American right enthusiastically adopted this
interpretation. Elon Musk publicly supported Brand after the allegations
appeared in 2023. Tucker Carlson subsequently connected Brand’s predicament to
his attacks on pharmaceutical companies, establishment institutions and Western
policy towards Ukraine. After criminal charges were brought, Carlson presented
the proceedings as politically motivated and questioned whether Brand could
receive justice in Britain.
This campaign had little to do with a consistent defence of
democratic rights. Brand had become a politically useful media figure, and his
legal difficulties could therefore be incorporated into an existing narrative
in which right-wing personalities and online influencers portrayed themselves
as victims of an all-powerful liberal establishment. It was nevertheless
necessary to reject the opposite position. Brand’s defenders' politically
reactionary arguments could not justify declaring him guilty before trial.
Democratic rights cannot be defended selectively according to whether one
approves of the accused.
That is why opposition to trial by media in 2023 was
correct. The principle involved is elementary: allegations, however grave, are
not criminal convictions. Guilt must be established through evidence tested
before a court in proceedings in which the accused has the right to defend
himself. The subsequent trial did precisely what Brand’s political defenders
claimed could not occur. He was represented by experienced counsel and
permitted to contest the allegations against him. His barrister urged the jury
to distinguish between behaviour they might find personally objectionable and
conduct proved to be criminal. The resulting verdicts show that the jury
distinguished between the charges, returning both acquittals and convictions.
The claim that Brand was simply a “political prisoner”
therefore cannot be sustained merely by asserting that he had become an
opponent of establishment politics. His political opinions neither proved guilt
nor provided immunity from criminal prosecution. Brand’s highly visible turn
towards Christianity also became part of his new public identity. His
appearances carrying a Bible and his repeated references to his faith fit
neatly into the wider narrative of spiritual rebirth he had developed for his
international audience. Whatever Brand’s personal beliefs, the political
significance of this transformation is unmistakable. The former advocate of
loosely defined spiritual revolution had reconstructed himself as a Christian
dissident confronting what he and his allies described as a corrupt
establishment.
The industry that made him
Any serious assessment of Brand must also examine the
entertainment industry that created the conditions for his extraordinary
celebrity. He committed the offences for which he was convicted while rising
rapidly through British television and radio before moving into Hollywood.
Brand’s deliberately provocative sexual persona was not incidental to this
ascent. It became part of the commodity being sold. Broadcasters constructed
programmes around his personality and cultivated the image of the
uncontrollable celebrity provocateur. The commercial imperative was obvious:
outrage generated attention, attention generated audiences, and audiences
generated revenue.
The notorious 2008 BBC Radio 2 scandal involving obscene
prank calls to the actor Andrew Sachs finally demonstrated that there were
limits to what institutions could tolerate once controversy threatened the
institution itself. But by then the mechanisms through which celebrity
behaviour was indulged, normalised and monetised were already evident. Subsequent
investigations into how concerns about Brand were handled raised broader
questions about institutional culture and junior employees' capacity to
challenge powerful performers. The essential issue therefore cannot be reduced
to the moral character of one celebrity.
This is where a socialist analysis must distinguish itself
from the approach associated with the more affluent sections of the #MeToo
milieu. In 2023, parts of the liberal media collapsed the distinction between
accusation and conviction, turning the individual celebrity into the exclusive
explanation for an entire institutional culture. Such an approach
simultaneously threatens fundamental democratic principles and obscures the
social relations that make abuses of power possible.
The hierarchical organisation of the entertainment industry
places enormous influence in the hands of celebrities, executives and owners.
Junior researchers, production workers, runners and other often precariously
employed workers can find themselves dependent upon precisely those above them
for continued employment and advancement. Celebrity itself is a commodity. Once
corporations have invested substantial amounts of money in a profitable
personality, enormous commercial incentives arise to preserve that
personality’s market value.
The phenomenon is therefore not reducible simply to “bad
men”. It involves structures of wealth, employment, power and dependency
embedded within the entertainment business itself.
Brand’s later political evolution also cannot be separated
from the economics of alternative online media. Digital media has created a
lucrative market in permanent outrage. The successful influencer must
continually produce novelty, controversy and conflict to maintain engagement.
Audiences are encouraged to regard conventional journalism as inherently dishonest,
while the influencer's personality becomes the principal guarantee of truth. Grievance
consequently becomes a business model.
Within this economy, every criticism can be framed as
censorship, every institutional sanction as persecution, and every controversy
as further confirmation that the dissident personality threatens powerful
interests. Brand did not merely participate in this media economy.
Increasingly, it shaped his public identity.
The lessons
The rise and fall of Brand contains political lessons
extending far beyond one individual. The social anger he expressed in 2013 was
genuine. Millions of young people had experienced the consequences of the
financial crash, austerity, declining living standards, war and extreme
concentrations of wealth. They confronted an official political culture
seemingly incapable of articulating any alternative. That alienation has
certainly not disappeared.
But Brand demonstrated precisely why such anger cannot be
entrusted to celebrities, however charismatic, nor channelled through a
politics that substitutes personality, lifestyle and authenticity for an
understanding of class, history and political organisation. The extraordinary
ease with which Brand travelled from the pages of the New Statesman to
the political environment surrounding Tucker Carlson demonstrates the
instability of celebrity anti-politics. A vague denunciation of corrupt
“elites” does not constitute socialism.
Capitalism is not simply the rule of dishonest politicians,
greedy bankers, pharmaceutical corporations, media executives or secretive
bureaucracies. It is a historically developed social system based upon definite
class relations and the private ownership of society’s productive forces. Without
understanding this, opposition to capitalism can be redirected endlessly from
one supposed enemy to another without ever confronting the social foundations
of exploitation.
There is another lesson. It was correct in 2023 to oppose
trial by media and insist upon the presumption of innocence. That principle
does not disappear because a defendant subsequently proves unpopular, nor does
it become retrospectively mistaken when a jury eventually returns guilty
verdicts. The principle has now been tested through the judicial process. Brand
faced criminal charges, contested those charges and was acquitted on some while
being convicted on others. To continue to portray the verdict itself as
sufficient proof of a political conspiracy is not a defence of democratic
rights. It attempts to transform political sympathy for an individual into
immunity from the ordinary requirements of criminal law.
Brand’s political career began with a genuine social
phenomenon: mass disgust with inequality, official politics and the
consequences of the capitalist crisis. But celebrity radicalism proved
incapable of providing any way forward. The working class requires no prophets
manufactured by the entertainment industry. It requires a political perspective
grounded in the accumulated historical experience of the international workers’
movement and an organisation capable of uniting workers across national, racial
and religious divisions against the capitalist system itself.
Brand once offered “revolution” without class, programme or
party. What remained after the rhetoric had evaporated was the individual
personality itself. That was always the fundamental weakness. And it was
ultimately the political trajectory the project contained from the beginning.
Bibliography
Books and primary material
Brand, Russell (2014), Revolution. London: Century.
BBC Newsnight (2013), Jeremy Paxman interview with
Russell Brand, broadcast 23 October 2013.
New Statesman (2013), issue guest-edited by Russell
Brand, 24 October 2013.
Russell Brand: Comedy, Celebrity, Politics (2016).
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Socialist and political commentary
Scripps, Thomas (2023), “Media mob lynches comedian and
actor Russell Brand over sexual assault allegations”, World Socialist Web
Site, 21 September 2023.
McRedmond, Finn (2023), “We have lost Russell Brand”, New
Statesman, 7 March 2023.
McRedmond, Finn (2025), “Russell Brand’s transatlantic
trial”, New Statesman, 30 May 2025.
Prospect (2015), “World Thinkers 2015: Russell
Brand”, 16 February 2015.
News reports: allegations, charges and right-wing
response
Mediaite (2023), “‘I Support Russell Brand’: Elon Musk gives
full-throated backing”.
Salon (2023), “Right-wing conspiracists flock to
support Russell Brand”, 20 September 2023.
Mediaite (2025), “Tucker Carlson calls on Trump to ‘rescue’
Russell Brand”.
NPR (2025), “Russell Brand pleads not guilty to rape, sexual
assault charges in U.K.”, 30 May 2025.
PBS NewsHour/AP (2025), “Russell Brand pleads not guilty to
charges of rape and sexual assault”.
Variety (2026), “Russell Brand’s rape trial delayed
to October”.
News reports: verdict and sentencing
CNN (2026), “Actor and comedian Russell Brand found guilty
of rape and sexual assault”, 5 November 2026.
Al Jazeera (2026), “Russell Brand found guilty of rape and
sexual assault by UK court”, 5 November 2026.
The Hollywood Reporter (2026), “Russell Brand found
guilty of rape and sexual assault at London trial”, 5 November 2026.
NPR (2026), “From comedian to convicted rapist: What to know
about Russell Brand”, 5 November 2026.
CNN (2026), “Hiding in plain sight? Russell Brand’s
conviction poses tough questions for UK entertainment industry”, 8 November
2026.
NPR (2026), “Russell Brand to learn sentence after being
found guilty of rape and sexual assault”, 8 November 2026.
NBC News (2026), “Russell Brand awaits sentencing as he
faces ‘significant’ prison time”, 9 November 2026.
