Having joined the Labour Party in 1976, Glasman re-engaged with Labour politics after his mother's death in 2008. Glasman described it as a "small-c" conservative form of socialism which advocates a return to what Glasman believed were the roots of the pre-1945 Labour Party by encouraging the political involvement of voluntary groups from trade unions through churches to football clubs. In a critical assessment of Glasman's political philosophy,
Alan Finlayson asserts that Glasman emphasises ethical social institution rather than moral individualism, criticises commodification and the money economy and seeks to revive the concept of the "common good" at the forefront of British politics. Glasman's role in the creation and promotion of Blue Labour is described in the book
Tangled Up in Blue (2011) by
Rowenna Davis. Glasman himself says that in developing the concept of Blue Labour he was inspired by the
Bund, the secular Jewish Socialist Party in Lithuania, Poland and Russia founded in 1897; and the writings of 19th-century German
rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. He also points out the connections between the
living wage and the demand of the Jewish trade unions in the
East End for a
family wage. In April 2011, Glasman called on the Labour Party to establish a dialogue with sympathisers of the far-right
English Defence League (EDL) in order to challenge their views and "to build a party that brokers a common good, that involves those people who support the EDL within our party. Not dominant in the party, not setting the tone of the party, but just a reconnection with those people that we can represent a better life for them, because that's what they want". In July 2011, Glasman called for some immigration to be temporarily halted and for the right of
free movement of labour, a key provision of the
Treaty of Rome, to be abrogated, dividing opinion among Labour commentators. Emphasising that
Israel should not be "demonised", Glasman says he does not like Israel, where in his opinion "terrible things [are] going on", adding that "the
Jewish settler movement is as bad as
Islamic jihadist supremacists. What I see with jihadists and settlers is
nationalist domination, and
yuck is my general verdict". However, he accepted the visiting professorship he was offered by
Haifa University, telling
The Jewish Chronicle: "If people I know say they want to
boycott Israel, I say they should start by boycotting me". In a House of Lords debate on the
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill on 20 February 2017, Lord Glasman referred to the fact he campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union in the
2016 referendum. He was a personal friend of conservative philosopher
Roger Scruton and the two inspired each other ideologically. After Scruton's death in 2020, Glasman eulogised him in an obituary on
UnHerd. Speaking at the Postliberalism Conference in December 2024, Glasman celebrated the victory of
Donald Trump, which he said was "world historical", and described it as "a
multi-racial, multi-ethnic, interfaith, working-class coalition against progressives – that's the enormity of what we're talking about.
Kamala Harris was for they/them, President Trump is for you. That's all you really need to know about the American election". He later described one of his "political missions" as "to reclaim the rainbow from the ownership of
transsexuals". Glasman also declared, in the aftermath of Trump's second election, that "the only place to build a house now is on the left side of MAGA square", which he understands as the faction represented by
Steve Bannon. Morgan Jones and David Klemperer, co-editors of
Renewal, said that by choosing to align with the
MAGA movement, Glasman sided with forces which threaten social democracy, and which today represent its primary antagonist. In 2025, Glasman gave the Annual Address of the
Global Warming Policy Foundation, a British
climate change denialist think-tank. During his speech, he compared the
climate crisis to past beliefs in an "imminent apocalypse", noting that "all of [those] predictions were wrong", implying that the overwhelming
scientific consensus on the climate crisis was similarly misguided. This is contrary to the extensive body of conclusive
scientific research, and Glasman offered no evidence to back up his claims. He criticised the "progressive orthodoxy" that "weird is normal", calling it "idiocy masquerading as reason", and blaming universities as the "main incubators" of
progressivism. He also claimed that the BBC "would be in a better state today" if it had "stayed static ... in 1973". He called
Net Zero "fantastical and incoherent" and endorsed the expansion of the
North Sea oil and gas industry, and said that Britain should consider reopening
its coal mines. In September 2025, Glasman called for
HM Treasury to be "abolished", with its powers moved to the prime minister and a new economics ministry, in order to trigger an industrial revival based on
heavy industry and vocational jobs in place of white collar work. He also called to "close down half of universities and turn them into vocational colleges". In November that year, he was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Together Declaration, a group with ties with
Reform UK. == Personal life ==