Skip to content

Sanders’ Brother Making a Run for Parliament

Larry Sanders has lived in the UK since the late-1960s

Larry Sanders, shown here at an anti-austerity protest in February, moved to Great Britain in the late-1960s. (Creative Commons)
Larry Sanders, shown here at an anti-austerity protest in February, moved to Great Britain in the late-1960s. (Creative Commons)

The next chapter of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ political revolution might take place across the pond as his brother plans to stand as a candidate for the British Parliament.

Larry Sanders is running in the October special election for the seat vacated by the former prime minister, David Cameron.

Sanders, the older brother of the Vermont independent, moved to the United Kingdom in the late-1960s. He briefly moved back to the U.S. after his brother was elected to Congress in 1990.

He attended Harvard Law School in the 1950s before dropping out to care for his ailing mother. He completed his degree in 1994.

He previously served on the Oxfordshire County Council and is the Health spokesman for the U.K.’s Green Party. He lost a bid for Parliament in last year’s elections, taking just 4 percent of the vote in the district of Oxford West & Abingdon, won by the Conservative candidate.

Like his brother, Larry Sanders has often clashed with mainstream liberals in his adopted home.

He was previously a member of the Labour Party but left after he felt the party moved too far to the right under former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair, incidentally, drew many of his ideas about “Third Way” politics from Bill Clinton, whose wife Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination this year.

Bernie Sanders is famously reluctant to speak about his personal life but he got emotional at July’s Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when his brother, a member of the Democrats Abroad delegation, cast his vote for him and recalled their late parents, saying they would have been “immensely proud” of him.

Larry Sanders is an admitted long shot for the seat, which Conservatives have held almost continuously since 1974. In an interview on Friday with Buzzfeed UK, he talked about his chances and his reasons for running. And he sounded a lot like his brother.

“The underlying issues will be the one that Bernard raises, which is the fact that we’ve had growing inequality for the last 30 or 40 years, which means the bulk of the wealth and income has gone to the very richest people,” he said.

He also said that he would work against efforts to privatize the country’s National Health Service.

Recent Stories

Durbin’s run at Judiciary Committee focused on immigration, judges

Former NFL player Jay Feely launches bid for Congress in Arizona 

Durbin announces retirement, capping off decadeslong career in Congress

First-quarter tax lobbying bonanza as reconciliation beckons

Capitol Ink | Constitutional wrecking ball

The economic challenge facing Republicans