Eddie Izzard has told HuffPost
UK she believes we have 80 years to save humankind.
In an exclusive interview to be published this Saturday, the 59-year-old actor, comedian and writer spoke about her desire to move into politics.
She bemoaned the rise of the far-right, and suggested that reversing laws and structures implemented by the likes of former US president
Donald Trump can be far simpler than people believe.
“They snap back to whatever they were,” Eddie says.
“Boom. Just like that. That’s what Biden did.
Joe Biden got in, boom, he undoes a lot of this extreme right wing hatred that Trump was doing. And that’s one of the great things - you can reset, even if a person comes in and drags it backwards, it snaps back.”She added: “It doesn’t have to acclimatise. You don’t get the bends - you just snap all the rights back. And that’s a wonderful thing. I’m interested in what makes good ideas stick, and stick around.”
Eddie plans to stand as a
Labour MP in the next by-election, but if not then she hopes to have success in the general
election in 2024.
Speaking of how she believes time’s running out to save humankind and find a way to unify people with differing beliefs, she said: “We have to get there this century. We’ve got 80 years to get that working or I don’t think we’ll make it as a species.”
Commenting on her political approach, she said: “It’s not that I think my ideas are right and no one else’s are right, but it’s more that I’ve looked at a lot of ideas and I’m trying to put forward a thing where a fair chance in life should be the right of every person in the world.
“That’s my world view and that includes everyone = 7.8 billion people [the world’s population].”
Does the alleged anti-trans faction of the party worry her? “Nope. No bother.”In politics, Eddie hopes to find “common ground” with people who inherently have different values to her. “I’m not going to agree with those people, but I can probably make common ground with most people,” she says. “A vast array of moderate people, passionate people, live-and-let-live people.
“The right-wing point of view, I have no compassion for that. The idea of hating people - no.”
She describes the challenge of politics as finding ways of engaging with “people who self-disenfranchise themselves - franchise is society if you think about it.”
She adds: “Some people say they wish to be sexist, they wish to be racist, they wish to hate people who are LGBT, use violence and the threat of violence in their everyday life.”Eddie came out as trans in 1985, the same year she began performing stand-up comedy.
She has worked as an
Actor in high-budget
Hollywood movies, including Ocean’s Thirteen with
Brad Pitt and George Clooney, and recently ran 32 marathons and performed at 31
comedy gigs in 31 days, raising money for charity as part of her ‘Make Humanity Great Again’ campaign.
She has been a member of the Labour Party since 1995, and previously ran for a seat in the National Executive Committee, the party’s governing body, but failed to get elected on two occasions.
When Labour Party activist Christine Shawcroft resigned in 2018 Eddie briefly replaced her on the Committee, but wasn’t re-elected that summer.
In the wide-ranging HuffPost UK interview, Eddie also revealed that she’s embracing using she/her pronouns, but said she will continue to play male roles on screen.
She also revealed that while she identifies as gender fluid, she doesn’t expect to return to “boy mode” again now that she’s happily in “girl mode.”
″No, I’m more based in girl mode from now on,” she said. “I feel I’ve been promoted to she and it’s a great honour, but I’m still gender fluid.”
Read the full interview with Eddie Izzard on HuffPost UK this Saturday.READ MOREEddie Izzard To Use 'She' And 'Her' Pronouns: 'It Feels Very Positive'Eddie Izzard Calls For 'Stain Of Anti-Semitism' To Be Removed From Labour PartyEddie Izzard Calls Ian McEwan's Transgender Comments 'A Bit Weird'