Bernie Sanders’s Brother Faces British Voters

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont promised to fight for the middle class, to challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton, and to push back against the influence of the Koch brothers in announcing his long-shot bid for president last week.

But in a lighter moment, Mr. Sanders offered some warm wishes to another politician in the family – his older brother Larry.

“We didn’t have a lot of books in the house and it was my brother who introduced me to a lot of my ideas,” Mr. Sanders, 73, said at his news conference. “I hope my brother does very well in his race for Parliament in the U.K.”

Larry Sanders, 80, will know his fate at the polls much sooner. He represents the Green party in Oxfordshire in Thursday’s general election for Parliament. As with the senator, his chances of victory in the British elections are slim.

“I’m not likely to win,” Larry said in a telephone interview from his home in Oxford.

In the last election, the Green party won just 2 percent of the vote. Garnering 10 percent this time would be a success, he said.

Larry Sanders, who holds dual citizenship, moved to Britain in 1969 after marrying an English woman. A retired social worker who studied at Harvard and Oxford, he is against the privatization of Britain’s national health program, and he wants the government to build hundreds of thousands of subsidized homes for the poor.

Political activism runs deep in the Sanders family. Their grandfather, who was born in Poland, was an active trade unionist and their parents were committed to the New Deal.

Recalling their humble beginnings, Larry Sanders said that Bernie lapped up his old college books when he was still in high school and that he was an admirer of Sigmund Freud. The two share many political views but Larry said his brother — whom he calls Bernard or Bern — is a better communicator.

“It’s quite frightening. We have pretty much the same political views on all the main issues,” he said.

As for the presidential election, Larry Sanders said that he hoped Bernie did not wear himself out, and believes that his brother will pose a tougher opponent for Mrs. Clinton than people think. His little brother, he said, is a tireless competitor.

“He was a cross-country runner in high school,” Larry Sanders said. “They run through the mud, they run up and down hills and they keep running no matter how tired they are.”