Douglas Kear Murray (born 16 July 1979)^[1] is a British author, journalist and political commentator.^[2] He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was Associate Director from 2011-18. He is also an associate editor of the British political and cultural magazine The Spectator.^[3][4] Murray writes for a number of publications, including Standpoint and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (2005), Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry (2011) about the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017), and The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019).

Murray appears regularly in the British broadcast media. He is sometimes described as a conservative^[5] or neoconservative^[6][7] and a critic of Islam.

Murray was born and raised in Hammersmith, London to an English mother, a civil servant, and Scottish Gaelic-speaking father, a school teacher, along with his brother.^[2][8] He would go to his father's ancestral home, the Isle of Lewis, every summer as a boy, where he enjoyed fishing.^[8][9]

Murray was educated at West Bridgford School and was awarded a musical scholarship at St Benedict's School^[10] and later at Eton College,^[8][11] before going on to study English at Magdalen College, Oxford.^[12]

At age 19, while in his second year at Oxford University, he published^[13] Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas ^[12] that was described by Christopher Hitchens as "masterly".^[14] 'Bosie' was awarded a Lambda Award for gay biography in 2000.^[15] After leaving Oxford, Murray wrote a play, Nightfall, about the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.^[16] In 2006, he published a defence of neoconservatism — Neoconservatism: Why We Need It — and made a speaking tour promoting the book in the United States.^[16] In 2007, he assisted in the writing of Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership by Gen. Dr. Klaus Naumann, Gen. John Shalikashvili, Field Marshal The Lord Inge, Adm. Jacques Lanxade, and Gen. Henk van den Breemen.^[17] His book Bloody Sunday was (jointly) awarded the 2011–2012 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.^[18] In June 2013, his e-book Islamophilia: a Very Metropolitan Malady was published.^[19] His book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam was published in May 2017.^[20] The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity is set for publication on September 17, 2019.^[21]

Murray has appeared on a number of British current affairs programmes, including the BBC's Question Time,^[22] This Week,^[23] HardTalk,^[24] the Today programme,^[25] The Big Questions,^[26] Daily Politics,^[27] and Sunday Morning Live.^[28] Murray has written for The Sunday Times^[29], The Daily Telegraph^[30],The Guardian^[31], Standpoint,^[32] and UnHerd^[33]. In 2012 he was hired as a contributing editor of The Spectator.^[34] He has debated at the Cambridge Union, the Oxford Union, and participated in several Intelligence Squared and Intelligence Squared US debates.^[35] He has also appeared on other TV channels such as Sky News^[36] and Al Jazeera.^[37]

In 2016, Murray organised a competition through The Spectator of offensive poems about Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for which a reader donated £1,000 as the top prize.^[38] This was in reaction to the Böhmermann affair, in which German satirist, Jan Böhmermann, was prosecuted under the German penal code for such a poem.^[39] One of Murray's articles on the affair^[40] contributed to his being longlisted for the 2017 Orwell Prize for Journalism^[41] five years after his book, Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and The Saville Inquiry, was longlisted for the 2012 Book Prize.^[42] He announced the winner of the poetry competition as Boris Johnson, current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and former Mayor of London, who is one-eighth Turkish.^[43]

Murray is on the international advisory board of NGO Monitor.^[44]

Murray is a frequent critic of Islam, and has identified what he sees as, "a creed of Islamic fascism—a malignant fundamentalism, woken from the Dark Ages to assault us here and now".^[45] He has also described the phrase Islamophobia as a "nonsense term" and stated "A phobia is something of which one is irrationally afraid. Yet it is supremely rational to be scared of elements of Islam and of its fundamentalist strains in particular."^[46][47]

In his bestselling book The Strange Death of Europe, Murray argued that Europe "is committing suicide" through mass and illegal immigration from non-European cultures, poor standards of assimilation, and is losing its "faith in its beliefs"^[48]. A review in The New York Times, by writer Pankaj Mishra, described the book as "a handy digest of far-right clichés",^[49] while Juliet Samuel of The Telegraph praised it: "His overall thesis, that a guilt-driven and exhausted Europe is playing fast and loose with its precious modern values by embracing migration on such a scale, is hard to refute".^[50] Rod Liddle of The Times called the book "brilliant, important and profoundly depressing."^[51]

Speaking at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in February 2006, Murray said,

Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition... From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs … Where a mosque has become a centre of hate it should be closed and pulled down. If that means that some Muslims don't have a mosque to go to, then they'll just have to realise that they aren't owed one.^[52][53][54]

After Murray refused Paul Goodman's offer to disown these comments, the Conservative Party frontbench severed formal relations with Murray and his Centre for Social Cohesion.^[53][55]

In March 2009, Murray wrote to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith warning that he was planning to instruct his lawyers to issue an international arrest warrant against Ibrahim Mousawi if he entered Britain;^[56] the Home Office eventually refused Mousawi a visa.^[57] In 2009, Murray was prevented from chairing a debate at the London School of Economics between Alan Sked and Hamza Tzortzis, with the university citing security concerns following a week-long student protest against Israel's attacks on Gaza.^[58] The move drew strong criticism from conservative press such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator.^[59][60][61]

In 2010, Murray argued against the motion in an Intelligence Squared US debate titled "Is Islam a Religion of Peace?" alongside Ayaan Hirsi Ali.^[62] In 2014, he argued for the motion in an Oxford Union debate titled "This House Believes postwar Britain has seen too much immigration".^[63]

Murray has highlighted what he sees as the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of expression to lampoon religion. In 2015, he stated the belief that the Charlie Hebdo shooting and plots of violence against Jyllands-Posten following the 2005 cartoon controversy were attempts to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws.^[64]

Murray has described anti-Islam groups or individuals in Europe such as the English Defense League, Tommy Robinson and PEGIDA as representing a "secondary problem" which sprung up in reaction to the "primary problem" of Islamism. He has argued that European politicians and the authorities have focused too much on the secondary problems whilst insufficiently tackling or ignoring the primary.^[65][66][67]

Writing in 2015, Murray asserted that he does not view all Muslims as sympathetic towards terrorism and expressed support for Muslims aiming to reform and de-literalise Islam. However, he also stated "Islam is not a peaceful religion. No religion is, but Islam is especially not" and criticised Western politicians who claim Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.^[68]

Murray has written in support of Britain leaving the European Union, citing concerns with the Eurozone, immigration, and the prospect of ever-closer union.^[69] He has claimed that the Brexit vote "has just not been accepted by an elite", leading to a "profoundly dangerous moment" for Britain's democracy.^[70]

In 2019, Murray urged New Statesman journalist George Eaton and editor Jason Cowley to share the original recording of an interview between Eaton and Sir Roger Scruton, with Murray branding the published interview, which attributed a number of controversial statements to Scruton, as "journalistic dishonesty".^[71] Murray eventually managed to acquire the recording, which formed the basis of an article defending Scruton, arguing that his remarks had been misinterpreted.^[72] The New Statesman subsequently apologised for Eaton's misrepresentation.^[73][74][75]

Murray is an atheist, having previously been a practising Anglican until his twenties,^[8][16] but has described himself variously as a cultural Christian^[76] and a Christian atheist,^[77] and believes that Christianity is an important influence on British and European culture.^{[8][20][78][79]} Murray is openly gay.^[80]

• Murray, Douglas (2000). Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. ISBN 0-340-76771-5.
• Murray, Douglas (2005). Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. ISBN 1-904863-05-1.
• Murray, Douglas (2011). Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry. London: Dialogue. ISBN 978-1-84954-149-7.
• Murray, Douglas (2013). Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady. emBooks. ISBN 9781627770507.
• Murray, Douglas (2017). The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. ISBN 9781472942241.
• Murray, Douglas (2019). The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Identity, Morality. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. ISBN 9781472959959.

As co-author:

• Brandon, James; Murray, Douglas (2007). "Hate on the State: How British libraries encourage Islamic extremism" (PDF). Westminster, UK: Centre for Social Cohesion.
• Murray, Douglas (2007). "Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership" (PDF).
• Murray, Douglas; Verwey, Johan Pieter (2008). "Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech Within Europe's Muslim Communities" (PDF). London, UK: Centre for Social Cohesion.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Douglas Murray.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Douglas Murray (author, 1979).

• Douglas Murray Official Website
• Douglas Murray writing at Gatestone Institute

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