Build a massive march on Sept 28 th !
The Stop the War Coalition, with the support of the Muslim Association of Britain and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are building for the biggest Ant-war demonstration yet on September 28, the eve of Labour Party conference. Up and down the country local groups are organising against Bush and Blair’s war.
A number of events have already taken place as part of the build up. In Hackney the local Stop the War collation organised a showing of the film ‘Not in My Name’, where over 200 turned up to watch and to debate the ongoing war and the situation in Palestine.
On June 16 the Coalition organised a activists conference in London, where over 150 people from all over the country discussed the politics of the US and British war drive, as well as how to build the coalition.
Speakers from the Iraqi Workers Communist Party, Mike Marqusee of the Socialist Alliance, Asad Rahman, Lindsey German and Andrew Murray and Jeremy Corbyn MP addressed the gathering.
At UNISON Conference the coalition held a successful fringe meeting attended by 140 delegates and addressed by Lindsey German (Stop the War Coalition) Bob Oram (UNISON) and Betty Hunter from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
The discussion from the floor focused on how to build the coalition in branches and to win the resolution before conference to get UNISON to affiliate to the Stop the War Coalition. (Sadly this was not successful). Other national trade unions have affiliated to the Coalition such as the RMT, ASLEF, NAPO and NATHFE.
It is vital to build inside the trade unions. The government continually tell the unions that there is no money for a decent wage but there seems to be plenty of money for bombs. We need trade union branches to mobilise their members and bring their banners to the demo. Let’s make it clear to Blair the trade unions are against his war.
The next step in building for the 28th is a week of action from July 15th. All local groups are being asked to organise activities in their local areas to really get the momentum going for this demonstration.
Biggest
Britain has seen the biggest anti-war demonstrations in Europe. Last month when George Bush visited Europe, it was no surprise that he did not visit Britain despite the fact that Tony Blair is Bush’s closest ally.
Since last September some of the largest protests in Britain for many years have worried Blair and his New Labour cronies. The first demonstration last year received little press coverage, but a short piece in The Guardian commented that the Government was worried at the size of the demonstrations.
Now well over 100 Labour MPs have signed a early day motion against the war on Iraq, and the mobilisations against this so called "war against terrorism" have put new Labour on the back foot.
Opinion polls show that there is a majority against a war against Iraq. So the reason Bush did not come to visit Blair in Britain was because of the rising anti-war feeling that has built up.
With Blair as George W Bush’s closest ally, campaigners have an important job to break Blair from Bush. The US government has said that to bomb Iraq they need Saudi Arabia and Britain on board.
This of course will not stop Bush, but we can make a difference by mobilising and telling the people in this country the truth about the war and untangling the spin that New Labour and Washington are weaving.
Now we hear that Bush is planning what he calls a "pre-emptive retaliatory strike". Many may laugh at the linguistic contortion, but the vicious intent is clear enough. This sort of "Bushism" is not just coming from the mad Texan in the White House but is being spread by sections of the British media. We have no control over the media – but we have to get the message out about the truth about the war.
When Northern Ireland Minister John Reid spoke at UNISON Conference he told delegates how caring the government is and how much they care about children. This ‘care’ doesn’t appear to extend to the million children in Iraq who have been killed by sanctions, or the children in Afghanistan who have been killed in the so-called "war against terrorism".
Iraq bombing
This "caring" government, which supposedly stands for social justice is pursuing a right wing reactionary agenda and lining up to support the US Government’s so-called precision bombing in Iraq.
And today, US and British troops are being deployed, not in the interests of humanity but the interests of profit and those who control that profit.
The US and British governments do not even respect international law and blatantly ignore UN resolutions that do not suit them.
When Saddam Hussein sent the UN Weapons Inspectors home, the US Government bombed Iraq. But when Israel refuses to allow a UN team to visit the occupied territories, the US doesn’t even protest.
And now Bush is breaking the American constitution (not a first in US politics) when he says that the US is sending in teams to assassinate Saddam Hussein, even though it states in the constitution that no foreign leader can be murdered or government toppled.
The cover that is used is to call this a "pre-emptive defensive" measure. Can you imagine what Bush would say if Iraq pre-empted this attack by sending its agents to kill him?!
With the racist Israeli state terrorising the people of Palestine, the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, CIA-backed murders in Columbia and a list a mile long of US and British-backed atrocities across the world, it is vital that we build the biggest anti-war demo that Britain has ever seen.
This war against terror is smokescreen for US Imperialism’s drive to totally dominate the globe politically and militarily. Building for the demo on the 28th is an important and significant part of the global fightback against the profit or death capitalist system.