General Election 2015
Electoral Anti-War Forum in South Tyneside:
The Necessity for an Anti-War Government Is an Election Issue
Source Workers' Weekly
http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wwie-15/ww15-09.htm#secondOn Tuesday, March 24, South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition (STWC) organised an anti-war forum in South Shields as part of highlighting the necessity for an anti-war government as an election issue and also of building the anti-war movement to hold the new government to account after the May election.
Opening the meeting, Chair Roger Nettleship thanked the participants for taking part in the discussion organised by the STSWC. He said that over the recent period the anti-war movement has taken a stand against NATO and its interference in Ukraine, the bombing of Iraq, the threat of Britain extending air strikes to Syria, and against any further open and covert military operations there, or in Ukraine, Africa and Asia with troops, or other forces.
However, tonight, he said, we would like to explore the vital need for a lasting peace, the ending of all foreign military and other interventions by Britain and an end to hostile actions by NATO in which Britain is a leading member. He emphasised that the need is for an anti-war government in Britain and all that means for the people going into the General Election.
He said that the STWC has invited South Tyneside anti-war candidates to take part in this discussion. One is from South Shields – Shirley Ford, the Green candidate – and two are from Jarrow and Hebburn – Dave Herbert, the Green candidate, and Norman Hall, candidate for the Trade Union Socialist Coalition (TUSC). Nader Naderi, one of the founder members of South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition, was also speaking on the necessity for an anti-war government in Britain.
After the speakers made their contributions there was a question and answer session. During the contributions and discussion, issues were highlighted such as the ending of the Trident nuclear programme in Britain, reforming the UN so as to enhance its role for peaceful solution of conflicts rather than a tool of the US and other big powers, the withdrawal of British troops from foreign soil, and the ending of Britain's membership of NATO. Also discussed was the importance of opposing the attack on the Muslim community and defending the rights of all from the attack on them by the ruling circles in Britain.
The speakers also elaborated some of their views on taking this anti-war stand into the General Election and how to take forward the anti-war movement post-election should they win their seats.
Whilst there were different views expressed, what characterised the focus of the forum was a common theme of the need to end the activities of the imperialist warmongers and their war machines once and for all. As one speaker said, “The urgency for an anti-war government in Britain has never been as great as it is today.” The issue for the people was determining their right to be, now and in the future, without the threat from the warmongering elites that have unleashed such barbaric and devastating wars against the peoples and countries all over the world.
What the speakers said at the forum
Dave Herbert, Green Party candidate for Jarrow and Hebburn said the Green Party's policies start with “peace and defence”. Peace is the first word. From that it follows that the Green Party is committed to peace-making and to resolving conflicts by negotiation rather than actual physical force.
The Green Party would focus any forces on peace-keeping and trying to engender mutual respect between peoples rather than hostility between peoples. They would look at reforming the UN because the UN is quite ineffectual in preventing conflict across the globe. The UN should become a peace-keeping force. The Green Party has got a long history of opposing the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Syria, and urges negotiation, opposing boots on the ground to resolve issues through force.
The Green Party would reform the defence force and bring it down to the lowest required for defence of the country but they would also want to use it for peace-keeping where there was a UN resolution, for humanitarian aid. In instances like the flooding, they would see armed forces equipped more for humanitarian and emergency aid than just fighting capability.
Dave Herbert also outlined the Parliamentary record of the Green MP Caroline Lucas in opposing military intervention and wars. He said that she had called for a constitutional convention with a view to abolishing the whipping system in Parliament so that MPs could look at the facts objectively and vote with their conscience. The aim would be to eliminate the pressure to vote for war and to make diplomacy the first resort so as not to commit armed forces abroad in an aggressive manner.
The question can be asked as to what is going to drive conflict in the future – climate change is one factor as it would lead to shortage of resources that are fundamental to people’s lives. It follows that there is a need to improve people’s lives across the globe as an answer to the inequality and the problems that exist. The global corporations are plundering the natural resources of and exploiting the under-developed world. This is another factor driving conflict in many areas of the world.
Norman Hall, Trade Union Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate for Jarrow and Hebburn said his view was that whilst it was possible for individual conflicts to have temporary solutions they are in effect temporary as long as the system of capitalism exists on the planet. This exploitative system by its very nature is competitive. There is competition between imperialist states for resources, for access to markets and for all the measures which making maximum profit necessitates leading to conflict. Inevitably that conflict becomes open warfare at times.
For instance, today there is a debate regarding the strengthening of the “defence” systems on the Falklands. Conflict could once again break out as the issue over the sovereignty of the Falklands is for Britain about access to the potentially rich oil fields around Antarctica and for fishing rights, and so on. Another area of conflict which may be on the agenda in the near future is the North West passage and who controls it once the ice is melted.
At present, proxy wars are taking place in the Middle East. The US has been responsible for so much confusion and warfare taking place with the doctrine of “my enemy's enemy is my friend”. It is this which has led to the creation of ISIS. Another saying that the US uses is that “something must be done” when referring to the chaos they have created throughout the Middle East and the countries they have invaded. It may sound good, but the issue is what is being done.
TUSC upholds that was is needed is not to send troops into countries but to support the movements of the working class and people so that the people of those countries are the ones who are in control of their destiny. The position of TUSC is that a genuine anti-war government can only exist when a radical transformation to a socialist government takes place.
Shirley Ford, Green Party candidate for South Shields said she was really pleased that STWC had organised this meeting because taking a stand against war has to be addressed as a really serious election issue. We have to raise our voices against the clamour of pro-military expansion and spending that is coming at us relentlessly though mainstream media. US generals come over to say that all countries have to have a spending minimum of 2% of GDP on “defence”. The issue of the Falklands is just the latest appalling incarnation of the way that argument is being whipped up.
Shirley Ford said that at the time she became active in CND, things were about to be escalated to the extent that a global war could have broken out. At the end of the Cold War there was the chance for peace and ending all the spending on the war industries. But rather than that happening, there was the First Gulf War and others followed. This has shown that there is a need to address the fundamental causes of war.
The anti-war movement has carried out incredible work since that time to expose and take a stand against these wars and against the huge arms industry which has never been fully tackled. After the illegal invasion of Iraq, which was opposed by the people, a whole new mantra was promoted to justify more wars: “Responsibility to Protect” and “Pre-emption”. This process has gone on and on, and they try to find a different justification each time.
The movements of working peoples represented by the “Arab Spring” have been utilised by the West in a very hostile way in their own favour and to block the peoples’ aspirations for democracy.
All of this is showing that there is a need for Parliamentary campaigning. Electing anti-war MPs can make a difference if the anti-war movement is supported, as they did when they voted against the bombing of Syria. But the Green Party does also oppose the causes of war by challenging the political and economic mechanisms which are at the heart of these conflicts.
The Green Party is arguing for a very radical transformation of the economy, society and politics. The election is one opportunity, but there is a need for a political movement. In terms of Stop the War campaigning, the necessity is to take a stand against and to challenge and expose as much as possible the pro-war tide.
Nader Naderi, South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition, spoke on the necessity for an anti-war government. He said that the urgency for an anti-war government has never been as great as it is today. It is not just intervention that is going on, but bombs are being dropped in a wholesale brutal killing of people and beating them into submission. Old empires used to feed the Christians to the lions, but the new empires give you live bombing of Baghdad, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and so on during chat shows. We call it intervention, but they are raining death, destruction, despair, grief and anxiety on the people. Through their anti-people actions and methods they attempt to subjugate peoples physically and mentally and in every way.
A genuine anti-war government is a real “I am” people’s government – a genuine and real movement of the people. It is bringing sanity back into politics, bringing about what the vast majority of people and governments of the world want, which is that conflicts should be resolved peacefully. However, the push for war is phenomenal. For example, Chris Alexander, Canadian Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, who in a fund-raiser thrown by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress organisation in Toronto said that Vladimir Putin is only going to face his come-uppance “with every option on the table”. Nader noted that every option means nuclear too. This means even the lackeys of US policy are going back to the crazy notion of the first strike doctrine in the worst of the bad years of the Cold War. Yet those in charge of those powerful countries are telling us they are working for “peace, stability and freedom”.
These people are waxing lyrical about a war against Putin. The “war on terror” and against “Islamic extremism” still goes on, but in their aim of global domination they are treating Russia as a threat to world peace. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union they used the excuse of the nuclear missile gap, the bomber gap, and so on. Now the West has turned cities and towns into broken rubble in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and they would like to turn Putin’s Russia into a similar wasteland.
The government’s latest assessment claims that currently Putin is going to be spending $100 billion in two years. But what they are keeping quiet about is that the British government is participating in NATO’s aggressive moves in the Ukraine and attempting to throw a ring of steel around Russia. In the promotion of the austerity agenda, spending on social programmes is being cut with the victimisation of those on benefits who cannot find work, while there are always funds for any escalation in military spending. Nader Naderi concluded that this is why we need an anti-war government in Britain.
