Irvine Welsh: My 'Islington wisteria war', support for Jeremy Corbyn and how trans criticism of JK Rowling has left me deeply uncomfortable
- Trainspotting author fell out with his ‘high-handed, posh ex-army' neighbour about their overgrown plant
- Scots novelist says Mr Corbyn has that 'middle-class naive socialist thing that everybody from an oppressed minority must be good'
- And he adds trans rights should not be 'advanced at the expense of 50 per cent of the population'
HE is famed for his gritty depictions of crime, drug addiction and poverty.
But Irvine Welsh has revealed he became embroiled in the most suburban of disagreements when he fell out with a neighbour about their overgrown wisteria.
The Trainspotting author was living next to a ‘high-handed, posh ex-army guy’ in a leafy area of north London when the fast-growing climber invaded his property and began clogging the drains.
The 65-year-old was infuriated when the neighbour refused to cut back the offending plant and resorted to bringing speakers outside to play techno music at full blast only to be met with opera in retaliation.
Matters escalated when a friend of the novelist’s offered to apply weedkiller to the wisteria to bring it under control ‘but accidentally killed the whole thing’.
Irvine Welsh was infuriated when the neighbour refused to cut back his out-of-control wisteria
And the saga took an even more middle class turn when the council and then the local MP – Jeremy Corbyn, then the green-fingered member for Islington North – became involved.
But Mr Welsh told the Times that the former Labour leader ‘was on the wrong side of history in the Islington wisteria war’, which unfolded in the 1990s soon after he found literary success.
He said that Mr Corbyn ‘showed his true gardener’s colours’ by taking the side of the aggrieved neighbour as by then the poisoned wisteria had ‘just peeled off the guy’s house’.
The dispute would have ended up in court had it not been for the untimely death of the neighbour - ‘of apoplexy probably’ - before a judge was asked to rule on it.
Mr Welsh said he has long since resolved his differences with Mr Corbyn, who was expelled from the Labour Party and is now standing as an independent candidate at the General Election.
He said: ‘I’ve just done a video in support of his campaign as an independent candidate. I’m all for independence.’
But when the Scots novelist's friend applied weedkiller to the sprawling wisteria he 'accidentally killed the whole thing'
But while he described Mr Corbyn as ‘kind’, he added that he has ‘that middle-class naive socialist thing that everybody from an oppressed minority must be good, so ended up supporting Islamic fundamentalists’.
But the Edinburgh-born writer, who still has a home in the Scottish capital as well as in London and Miami, said that he has never voted for Labour or the SNP, despite being a supporter of independence, as he dislikes political parties ‘because you have to toe the line’.
He added that former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon should have avoided the ‘social engineering’ that accompanied the SNP’s proposed reforms on gender recognition, which were blocked by the UK government.
Trans characters feature in Mr Welsh’s novel The Long Knives and, at the behest of his publisher, the manuscript was checked by a ‘sensitivity reader’.
He added: ‘I was like, “Get out, this is censorship”. But actually it was a really positive experience because the whole trans thing is such a moving picture. So [the reader] gives you the information to make sure it’s authentic.’
The treatment of fellow writer JK Rowling, who has faced fierce criticism from trans rights campaigners, has also left him deeply uncomfortable.
He said: ‘Only women and trans people can have that discussion, but what I would say is that I don’t believe trans rights should be advanced at the expense of 50 per cent of the population.’
