Brian Brivati

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British historian; executive director of the Britain Palestine Project


Brian Brivati

Image Brian Brivati.png
Brian Brivati, Britain Palestine Project team page
Born July 1966
Nationality British
Occupation Historian, academic, author, consultant
Known for Biographies of Hugh Gaitskell and Lord Goodman; executive director of the Britain Palestine Project (from 2025)
Education BA History and Politics, Queen Mary College, University of London (1987); PhD, Queen Mary and Westfield College (1992)

Brian Leopoldo Brivati (born July 1966) is a British historian, academic and author specialising in modern British political history. He has written biographies of prominent Labour Party figures including Hugh Gaitskell and has held academic positions in the UK.[1][2] He taught at Kingston University from 1994, directed the John Smith Memorial Trust from January 2008, and later ran capacity-building and advisory projects in Iraq, the Kurdistan Region and Ukraine.[3][4]

Brian Brivati is Executive Director, Britain Palestine Project[5] (Jan 2025 - Present).

Was the director of the John Smith Memorial Trust from January 2008.[3]

Career

Brivati has contributed to historical scholarship on the Labour Party, foreign policy and human rights. He has taught at various UK universities and served in advisory roles on international affairs.[1][6]

Early academic career

Brivati studied history and politics at Queen Mary College, University of London (BA, 1984–1987). His PhD (1988–1992, Queen Mary and Westfield College) was on the Campaign for Democratic Socialism, 1960–1964. Before joining Kingston University he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Westminster (1991–1993), a temporary part-time lecturer at Birkbeck College (1992–1993) and deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary British History (1992–1994).[1]

Kingston University

At Kingston University Brivati was lecturer in modern British history (1994–1996), senior lecturer (1996–1997), reader in history (1997–2001) and professor of contemporary history and director of graduate studies (2001–2005). From 2005 he was professor of contemporary history, director of the MA in Human Rights and field leader of the BA in Human Rights.[1] His Kingston profile said his "research and teaching has recently extended to comparative work on genocide and human rights" and that he "speakers [sic] regularly for the Holocaust Education Trust".[1] His later publisher biography says he was "professor of contemporary history, human rights and life writing at Kingston University until 2009".[7] By 2011 he was a visiting professor in human rights and life writing at Kingston, and he still described himself as a visiting professor there in 2025.[8][9]

From the Battle of Ideas biography:[10]

Professor Brian Brivati is Professor of Contemporary History at Kingston University and runs the Human Rights degrees at BA and MA level. He has published extensive work on contemporary British politics, with an emphasis on the political history of the British Labour party. His research and teaching has recently extended to comparative work on genocide and human rights. He speaks regularly for the Holocaust Education Trust and is a member of the Board of the Wiener Library. His articles have appeared in The Times, Financial Times, Independent on Sunday, Observer, New Statesman, Progress, Fabian Review, Contemporary Record, History Today and Parliamentary Brief, and he maintains a blog in the Guardian. He is a regular broadcaster on politics for radio and television. In 2007 he was a member of the Foreign Policy Centre/Channel 4 Iraq Commission.

Wiener Library. Companies House records him as a director of The Wiener Holocaust Library (00596820) from 8 February 2007 to 24 July 2008.[11]

Iraq Commission. In 2007 he was one of nine commissioners on the Iraq Commission, run by the Foreign Policy Centre in association with Channel 4 and chaired by Lord Ashdown, Baroness Jay and Lord King. The other commissioners included Stephen Twigg and Sir Patrick Walker, a former director general of MI5. Its report was published in July 2007.[12][13]

John Smith Memorial Trust

The John Smith Memorial Trust said Brivati "began his Directorship of the Trust in January 2008". It noted that he had edited Guiding Light, a collection of John Smith's speeches (2001).[3] A 2011 Labour Friends of Israel book described him as "Director of the John Smith Memorial Trust".[8] The Henry Jackson Society's council page, archived in October 2016, listed him as "Programme Director, John Smith Memorial Trust".[14]

When the directorship ended is not clear. His LinkedIn profile gives "Director – JSMT, Jan 2008 – Apr 2012", while his profile on The Conversation gives "2009–2014 Director, John Smith Trust".[15][6] His consultancy company was incorporated on 3 April 2012.[2]

Consultancy and international work, 2012–2024

In April 2012 Brivati set up a company, BLB Enterprises Limited, renamed Brian Brivati and Associates Limited in 2016, and he remains its director. It is registered under "other education".[2][16] Biteback, his publisher, says he left Kingston "to become director of the John Smith Memorial Trust and implement capacity building programmes for the UN and for the UK government globally".[7] In a July 2026 LinkedIn post he said that after leaving Kingston in 2008 he "worked on projects and visited countries effected [sic] by genocides including, Armenia, Rwanda, Ukraine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Kurdish Iraq".[17]

Kurdistan. He wrote in The Guardian in 2006 calling for the Halabja chemical attack to be remembered.[18] In March 2025 the Kurdistan Regional Government's UK representation described him as "a long-standing member of the KRG's Genocide Advisory taskforce". At a parliamentary commemoration of Halabja he called for Halabja and the Anfal campaign to be recognised as genocide, and for "greater freedom and independence for Kurds".[19]

Ukraine and security. The University of Exeter's Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security (CPUDS) lists him as a fellow. Its undated profile says he is "currently running the Ukraine programme for Option [sic] Venture Partners", acting as a senior adviser on Ukraine at the Folke Bernadotte Academy (the "Swedish agency for peace, security and development"), and an adviser at the Ukraine Strategic Initiatives at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.[4] His Conversation profile says he was "formerly" running the Ukraine programme for Optio Venture Partners and acting as a senior adviser at the Folke Bernadotte Academy. It describes him as still an adviser at Kyiv-Mohyla, and says he founded CPUDS with Paul Cornish and is an honorary senior research fellow there. It also says he runs the "Unsettlement Project", which has partners in Ukraine, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.[6]

Companies. He was a director of The Company of African Guilds (2015–2018), The Stabilisation and Recovery Network CIC (2016–2020) and Nominis Partners Ltd (2022–2024), all now dissolved (see Companies House below).[2][20]

Companies House

Companies House holds three officer records for Brian (Leopoldo) Brivati, born July 1966.[2][20][11]

Companies House appointments of Brian Leopoldo Brivati
Company Number Role Appointed Ended Correspondence address (as registered)
The Wiener Holocaust Library 00596820 Director 8 February 2007 24 July 2008 (resigned) 61b Park Hall Road, London, N2 9PY
Brian Brivati and Associates Limited (BLB Enterprises Limited until 30 April 2016) 08017081 Director 3 April 2012 – (active) 16 Somerset Road, Kingston Upon Thames, England, KT1 3EA
The Company of African Guilds (The Company of African Farming Guilds until 12 September 2016) 09716186 Director 4 August 2015 24 July 2018 (company dissolved) 4 Charlotte Mews, London, United Kingdom, W1T 4EA
The Stabilisation and Recovery Network Community Interest Company 10210429 Director 2 June 2016 20 October 2020 (company dissolved) 4 Charlotte Mews, London, United Kingdom, W1T 4EA
Nominis Partners Ltd 14063880 Director 22 April 2022 10 September 2024 (company dissolved) 4th Floor Fitzrovia House, 153-157 Cleveland Street, London, United Kingdom, W1T 6QW

[16][21][22][23]

Writing

Books

Year Title Role Publisher
1996 Hugh Gaitskell Author Richard Cohen Books
1996 The Contemporary History Handbook (with Julia Buxton and Anthony Seldon) Co-editor Manchester University Press
1997 New Labour in Power: Precedents and Prospects Editor Routledge
1997 Aneurin Bevan, 1897–1960 by Michael Foot, single-volume edition Editor Victor Gollancz
1999 Lord Goodman Author Richard Cohen Books
2000 The Labour Party: A Centenary History Editor Macmillan
2001 Guiding Light: The Collected Speeches of John Smith Editor Politico's
2002 Ernest Bevin by Alan Bullock, single-volume edition Editor Politico's/Methuen
2003 The Uncollected Foot: Essays, Old and New, 1953–2003 Editor Politico's
2007 The End of Decline: Blair and Brown in Power Author Politico's
2021 Icarus: The Life and Death of the Abraaj Group Author Biteback Publishing
2022 Losing Afghanistan: The Fall of Kabul and the End of Western Intervention Author Biteback Publishing

Sources: the Kingston profile, which lists the books to 2007,[1] Manchester University Press via the British National Bibliography,[24] and Biteback Publishing.[25][26] Biteback says Icarus challenges "the dominant media narrative" that "painted [Abraaj founder Arif] Naqvi as a thief and fraudster".[25]

Gaitskell biography

Brivati's biography of Hugh Gaitskell was criticised by Tom Easton for under-playing Gaitskell's covert American links.

in a footnote on Gaitskell's efforts to expel Aneurin Bevan from the party in 1955, Williams records Gaitskell's apparent concern that Godson was becoming too deeply involved in the party's internal affairs.
This unsourced observation has intrigued many since it appeared in 1983, but it has failed to stir the curiosity of Gaitskell's latest biographer, Brian Brivati. Not only does the footnote not rate a mention, but the anti-Bevan plotting at the Hotel Russell to which it relates is described without Godson's participation.
This is not an isolated omission. In the context of his times - highly organised, well-resourced 'anti-communism' by the British and American states - we should expect something substantial on the network of which Gaitskell was the leading British public figure and the activities of the circle around the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) in which he was a prominent participant. On the former, on which there is now a good deal of published material, we find scarcely anything in Brivati.[27]

Arnold Goodman biography

Brivati wrote a biography of Lord Goodman, a prominent solicitor who had been accused of embezzling funds from one of his clients, Lord Portman. Reviewers were divided about the way Brivati dealt with this.

The former Cabinet Secretary Robin Butler wrote:

In January 1999, when the newspapers were carrying stories that Lord Goodman and his solicitors' firm had misappropriated Portman Trust money, Brian Brivati wrote an article for The THES suggesting that there might be some fire behind the smoke. Many of Goodman's friends who believed that he would not have been reckless enough to mishandle a client's money, even if he had been disposed to do so, feared that Brivati's book, then in the final stages of preparation, would be a hatchet job...
...Overall, Brivati gives the impression of a man who started with a conclusion and found, inconveniently, that the evidence did not support it.[28]

Harold Wilson's former press secretary Joe Haines wrote:

Goodman could be a kind and generous man, so lax in his billing that he often didn't charge at all. The Friends of Arnold, especially in the arts world, are still numerous and cherish his memory. However, they don't include the Portman family, who accused him of stealing millions from a trust fund. Brivati persuasively clears Goodman of that charge, but Paul Foot, who originally made it, is a meticulous researcher, and I still cannot grasp why, if the accusation was totally unfounded, Goodman's old firm, Goodman Derrick, should have paid Lord Portman half a million pounds not to pursue his writ.[29]

The Evening Standard claimed that Brivati was leant on to remove revelations from the book:

"There is a lot of opposition from various establishment figures who knew Lord Goodman," Brivati tells me nervously. "They wanted a Victorian biography. But Goodman wanted public life without public accountability, and that's my central criticism. There are things I have left out of the book because they push the boundaries of privacy. I can only discuss what will appear in the book. Goodbye."[30]

This may have been related to Goodman's relationships with a number of powerful women:

A controversial new biography was supposed to reveal intimate details of Arnold Goodman's relationships with Jenny Lee, Nye Bevan's widow, Ann Fleming, wife of the creator of James Bond, and Lady Avon, widow of Sir Anthony Eden, the Tory prime minister.
However, pressure from "friends of Arnold", who was one of Britain's most influential men from the 1960s into the 1980s, has meant Brian Brivati, the author, has had to cut out certain references to Goodman's sexual interests.[31]

The End of Decline

In September 2007, Brivati published The End of Decline: Blair and Brown in Power, which had a simple thesis:

It is that the government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are responsible for the ending of decline in Britain. They owe Thatcher a great debt, but it is they, rather than Thatcher, who have made Britain the first among equals in Europe. They have helped to create a renaissance in British art and culture, and also in sport, culminating in the awarding of the 2012 Olympic Games to London.
In short, Britain has cured itself of the so-called 'British disease' and has become much more comfortable, imaginative and successful: it is now a country which is envied rather than pitied; in growth, no longer in decline. Despite many problems in the welfare state, the polarisation on the Iraq War and suicide bomb attacks, Britain is now confident in three vital areas: political economy, culture and our role in the world. We have confidence in our institutions, celebrate our culture and hold our head high.[32]
Brivati thinks our political class has been "obsessed by" problems that are "largely irrelevant to the lived experience of the British people in the first decade of the 21st century". He is referring to the status of the pound, the future of Britain as a union and defence of the unwritten constitution.[33]

Selected articles

  • "Remember Halabja", The Guardian, 16 March 2006.[18]
  • "A Victim-Centred Foreign Policy" (September 2006) and other posts as a member of the Euston Manifesto Group.[34]
  • With Philip Spencer, "Shameful Evasions", The Guardian, October 2006, on Darfur.[34]
  • "Lemkin and Shaw on Genocide", a review of Martin Shaw's What is Genocide?, Democratiya, 2007.[35]
  • Regular Guardian Comment is Free pieces, 2006–2010, on genocide, Darfur, the International Criminal Court and Labour politics. These include "Genocide and the new sovereignty" (January 2009) and "Yes, terrorism can be justified" (August 2009), as well as the newspaper's 2014 obituary of Tony Benn.[36]
  • "Championing, not undermining, human rights in Israel", in Making the progressive case for Israel (Labour Friends of Israel, 2011).[8]
  • "Labour is the party of sound defence and hatred of tyranny. Now it must show that in Ukraine", The Guardian, 2 January 2024.[36]
  • "Israel, Iran and the US: why 2025 is a turning point for the international order", The Conversation, 16 June 2025, written "in a personal capacity".[9]
  • "BPP Policy Platform 1: Legal basis for further action against Israel", Britain Palestine Project Substack, 19 July 2025.[37]

Affiliations

Britain Palestine Project

On 15 January 2025 the Balfour Project announced Brivati's appointment "as its first Executive Director as of today", describing him as "An historian of the modern British Labour Party and of genocide".[5] The announcement, made on behalf of the board by chair Andrew Whitley, said he had had "many years of fieldwork in the Middle East, Africa and Ukraine, leading capacity-building projects".[5] No public account of the recruitment process was found.

At the charity's parliamentary relaunch as the Britain Palestine Project on 13 March 2025, hosted by Lord Soames, Brivati said: "We relaunch as the Britain Palestine Project to help bring Britain back to the road of international law. Truth, history, and law have become pawns in the global disinformation wars, and it is our duty to restore them."[42] In July 2025 he published the charity's first "Policy Platform". It called for the UK to recognise Palestine, impose a full arms embargo on Israel and suspend the UK–Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement, among other measures.[37] In a July 2026 LinkedIn post he said he had "been deeply involved in Israel and Palestine as genocide unfolded in Gaza".[17] By contrast, the introduction to the 2011 Labour Friends of Israel book summarised his chapter, which celebrated Israel's "freedom of the press and its vibrant democracy", as calling on progressives "to work alongside, not to undermine, our liberal allies in the country".[8]

The Britain Palestine Project says the Executive Committee "is chaired by an Executive Direcor [sic], Dr Brian Brivati" and that, "Aside from the Executive Director", members of the committee are not paid fees.[43][44] The 2024-25 accounts describe the Executive Committee as comprising "the Executive Director, the Chair and the Chairs of the Board's Committees and Working Groups" but do not name him. They show staff costs of £47,129 and core consultant fees of £25,492.[45]

References, Resources and Contact

Contact

Website (former Kingston University profile): fass.kingston.ac.uk/staff/cv.php?staffnum=115 (archived)
Guardian profile: theguardian.com/profile/brianbrivati
The Conversation profile: theconversation.com/profiles/brian-brivati-1294006

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Kingston University, Prof Brian Brivati Kingston University, archived by the Internet Archive on 1 September 2007, accessed 21 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Companies House, Brian Leopoldo BRIVATI: appointments Companies House, accessed 21 October 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 John Smith Memorial Trust, Professor Brian Brivati John Smith Memorial Trust, archived by the Internet Archive on 10 March 2012, accessed 21 October 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 University of Exeter, CPUDS Fellows University of Exeter, accessed 21 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Balfour Project, Appointment of Executive Director by the Balfour Project Britain Palestine Project, 15 January 2025, accessed 21 October 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Conversation, Brian Brivati The Conversation, accessed 21 October 2026.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Biteback Publishing, Brian Brivati Biteback Publishing, accessed 21 October 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Ben Garratt (ed.), Making the progressive case for Israel Labour Friends of Israel, 2011, accessed 21 October 2026.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Brian Brivati, Israel, Iran and the US: why 2025 is a turning point for the international order The Conversation, 16 June 2025, accessed 21 October 2026.
  10. ↑ Battle of Ideas 2007 festival, biography, archived by the Internet Archive on 31 October 2007, accessed 3 September 2007.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Companies House, Brian BRIVATI: appointments Companies House, accessed 21 October 2026.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Foreign Policy Centre, About the Iraq Commission Foreign Policy Centre, accessed 21 October 2026.
  13. ↑ The Iraq Commission, The Iraq Commission Report Foreign Policy Centre in association with Channel 4, 2007, accessed 21 October 2026.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Henry Jackson Society, Advisory Council Henry Jackson Society, archived by the Internet Archive on 24 October 2016, accessed 21 October 2026.
  15. ↑ Brian Brivati, Brian Brivati LinkedIn (self-published; used as a last resort), accessed 21 October 2026.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Companies House, BRIAN BRIVATI AND ASSOCIATES LIMITED (08017081) Companies House, accessed 21 October 2026.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Brian Brivati, post on The Waiting Room LinkedIn (self-published; used as a last resort), July 2026, accessed 21 October 2026.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Brian Brivati, Remember Halabja The Guardian, 16 March 2006, accessed 21 October 2026.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Kurdistan Regional Government UK Representation, UK parliament commemorates Halabja chemical bombardment KRG UK, 17 March 2025, accessed 21 October 2026.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Companies House, Dr Brian Leopoldo BRIVATI: appointments Companies House, accessed 21 October 2026.
  21. ↑ Companies House, THE COMPANY OF AFRICAN GUILDS (09716186) Companies House, accessed 21 October 2026.
  22. ↑ Companies House, THE STABILISATION AND RECOVERY NETWORK COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY (10210429) Companies House, accessed 21 October 2026.
  23. ↑ Companies House, NOMINIS PARTNERS LTD (14063880) Companies House, accessed 21 October 2026.
  24. ↑ Open British National Bibliography, The contemporary history handbook OBNB, Manchester University Press, 1996, ISBN 0719048362, accessed 21 October 2026.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Biteback Publishing, Icarus: The Life and Death of the Abraaj Group Biteback Publishing, 2021, accessed 21 October 2026.
  26. ↑ Biteback Publishing, Losing Afghanistan: The Fall of Kabul and the End of Western Intervention Biteback Publishing, 2022, accessed 21 October 2026.
  27. ↑ Tom Easton, review of Hugh Gaitskell by Brian Brivati, Lobster, issue 32, December 1996.
  28. ↑ Robin Butler, Private Acts in a Public Theatre Times Higher Education Supplement, 18 August 2000, archived by the Internet Archive on 10 August 2009, accessed 21 October 2026.
  29. ↑ Joe Haines, "Lord Fixit", New Statesman, 18 October 1999.
  30. ↑ "Goodman Secrets kept under wraps", Evening Standard, 20 August 1999, p. 12.
  31. ↑ Richard Brooks, "Mother fixations of Lord Goodman", Sunday Times, 22 August 1999.
  32. ↑ Politico's, The End of Decline by Dr Brian Brivati Politico's, archived by the Internet Archive on 12 May 2008, accessed 12 May 2008.
  33. ↑ Kenneth Minogue, Reality bumps while the vision bounces Times Higher Education, 21 December 2007, archived by the Internet Archive on 10 August 2009, accessed 21 October 2026.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 The Euston Manifesto, Brian Brivati The Euston Manifesto, accessed 21 October 2026.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 Brian Brivati, Lemkin and Shaw on Genocide Democratiya (archived by Dissent), 2007, accessed 21 October 2026.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 The Guardian, Brian Brivati The Guardian, accessed 21 October 2026.
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Brian Brivati, BPP Policy Platform 1: Legal basis for further action against Israel Britain Palestine Project, 19 July 2025, accessed 21 October 2026.
  38. ↑ The Euston Manifesto, The Euston Manifesto The Euston Manifesto, archived by the Internet Archive on 20 April 2008, accessed 21 October 2026.
  39. ↑ Henry Jackson Society, Advisory Council: Policy Council members Henry Jackson Society, undated, accessed 5 November 2014.
  40. ↑ Unite Against Terror, Why I Signed: Brian Brivati Unite Against Terror, archived by the Internet Archive on 15 March 2009, accessed 21 October 2026.
  41. ↑ Project Associates, Team Project Associates, accessed 24 October 2014.
  42. ↑ Britain Palestine Project, Britain Palestine Project: A New Chapter Britain Palestine Project, accessed 21 October 2026.
  43. ↑ Britain Palestine Project, Who we are Britain Palestine Project, accessed 21 October 2026.
  44. ↑ Britain Palestine Project, Team Britain Palestine Project, accessed 21 October 2026.
  45. ↑ Britain Palestine Project, Report of the Trustees and Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 July 2025, filed with OSCR 30 March 2026, accessed 21 October 2026.
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