What Were Stephen Hawking's Political Views?

Hawking was politically engaged in his later years: a Labour supporter who opposed Brexit, criticised Donald Trump, defended the NHS and warned about climate change. His documented political positions.

Although best known for cosmology, Stephen Hawking became increasingly outspoken on political questions in his later years. His views were broadly on the political left, and he was not shy about expressing them. This page sets out his documented positions; it reports what he said rather than taking any view of its own.

Broadly on the left

Hawking was a long-standing supporter of Britain's Labour Party and held generally progressive views. The cause closest to his heart was the National Health Service, which he credited with his survival and defended fiercely; that story is told in full on the page about his activism and public life.

Opposed to Brexit

Hawking was a clear opponent of Britain leaving the European Union. Ahead of the 2016 referendum he argued strongly for remaining, and his concerns were rooted in his own world: he warned that leaving would damage British science by cutting off research funding, collaboration and the free movement of scientists that he believed had helped make the UK a scientific power. He saw the issue less in narrow party terms than as a question of the country's scientific future.

Critical of Donald Trump

Hawking was openly critical of US President Donald Trump. He said he found it hard to understand Trump's appeal and described him in unflattering terms. His sharpest concern was environmental: he warned that Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement could help push the planet past a dangerous tipping point, and he repeatedly stressed the urgency of acting on climate change, which he counted among the serious threats to humanity's future.

A scientist in the public square

What unites Hawking's political interventions is that they tended to flow from his identity as a scientist: a defence of evidence, of research, of international cooperation, and of institutions like the NHS. He believed his fame carried a responsibility to speak out on the issues he understood, and in his final years he used it freely.