Early left-wing politics Mason is a former member of the
Workers' Power group. He responded to an interviewer from the
Evening Standard in 2011: "It's on Wikipedia that I was, so it must be true. It's fair to say I was a Leftie activist. What my politics are now are very complicated." In an interview with
The Independent in 2015, he described himself as having been a "supporter" of the group. In a speech in 2015 marking the publication of
Naomi Klein's book
This Changes Everything, he declared that "
capitalism is dying". Mason has called for an alliance of "
bond traders from
Canary Wharf, arm in arm with placard-carrying Trots" against right-wing populist groups such as
UKIP. Mason later described UKIP voters in unfavourable terms, stating, "They are toe-rags, basically. They are the bloke who nicks your bike". In 2016, Mason distanced himself from his former involvement in far-left
Trotskyist politics, by saying that he no longer holds such views and identifies with a "radical
social democracy". Responding to comments by the then-
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, he said: As to Mr Osborne's claim that I am "revolutionary Marxist" it is completely inaccurate. I am radical social democrat who favours the creation of a peer-to-peer sector (co-ops, open source etc) alongside the market and the state, as part of a long transition to a post-capitalist economy. There's a comprehensive critique of
Bolshevism in my latest book,
Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future. Mason subsequently wrote positively about Marxism: in a piece for
New Statesman published in May 2018 for the bicentenary of Marx's birth, he praised
Marxist humanism inspired by Marx's
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 in general, and the thought of
Raya Dunayevskaya in particular, for its emphasis on overcoming
alienation from labour in order to achieve individual freedom, whilst criticising the authoritarianism of
Stalinism and the
structural Marxism of the likes of
Louis Althusser. In another
New Statesman article published the following year he described himself as an "actual Marxist", whilst critiquing
determinist interpretations of Marx which posit Marxism as a "
theory of everything".
Labour Party support In June 2016, Mason supported
Labour Party leader
Jeremy Corbyn after mass resignations from his cabinet and a
leadership challenge. He wrote in
The Guardian: "But one thing I do know: Corbyn is incapable of lying to the British people; he is inured to elite politics; he didn't spend his entire life in a
Machiavellian project to gain power and an invitation to
Oleg Deripaska's yacht. That's why I voted for him and will do so again if you trigger a leadership vote." In , he wrote on
Medium: "It is a genuine movement of the Labour left; it stands in the long tradition of radical social democracy, going back to
Robert Blatchford’s
Clarion movement before 1914, or the
ILP in the 1920s. [...] Instead of attacking
Momentum, any social democrat with an ounce of knowledge of Labour history should welcome it, even if they disagree with its politics." In the
New Statesman magazine in June 2018, Mason argued the case for state suppression of "fascists", saying that he favoured a policy of using "the full panoply of security measures to deter and monitor" those he described as "racists" and added: "For clarity, unlike many on the left, that means I am in favour of state suppression of fascist groups." He finished his article by saying that "The progressive half of Britain needs a narrative to overcome this threat: a narrative based on shared, historic values of democracy and tolerance", and also "[to] stop pandering to right-wing nationalism and xenophobia and start fighting it." Mason long supported the need for radical action on
climate change, at least from 2014. In 2019, Mason supported the US
Green New Deal legislation proposal. Later that year
Martin Wolf characterised Mason's views in the
Financial Times as justifying a
planned economy, quoting Mason saying in support of the UK
A Green New Deal report "Labour wants to combat climate change through three mechanisms: state spending, state lending and the state direction of private finance." In May 2022, in a
The Spectator podcast, Mason said he was a supporter of
Keir Starmer as Labour leader in the aftermath of the
Beergate COVID-19 regulations breach allegations. The same month, Mason was longlisted to be the Labour candidate for the
safe seat of
Stretford and Urmston in
Greater Manchester, succeeding the retiring MP
Kate Green. However, he did not make the shortlist, which was announced in June 2022. In October 2022, Mason tried for selection for
Sheffield Central to replace Labour MP
Paul Bloomfield, but here too did not make the shortlist. In March 2023, Mason stated his intention to run for selection for the new seat of Mid & South Pembrokeshire, but did not make the longlist. In February 2024, in
The Spectator, Mason wrote that he supported Labour abandoning
its £28 billion per year climate change spending commitment, after having studied the
Office for Budget Responsibility 2023 financial assessment in the light of interest rate increases, and he no longer thought the "case for borrowing to invest in green energy" was valid. It was reported in that Mason was being considered as a candidate by the Labour Party to run in the constituency of
Islington North at the
next general election. This could require him to run against the former Labour leader and serving Islington North MP,
Jeremy Corbyn, who had the Labour Party
whip withdrawn, should Corbyn run as an independent candidate. Mason confirmed his intention to apply for selection as the Labour candidate for the constituency in . Despite having previously supported him as Labour leader, Mason has been critical of Corbyn's record on
antisemitism, defence, and
Brexit. Mason was not selected for the selection shortlist, which consisted of two London councillors. ==Facebook group==