FRFI 149 June /July 1999
The anti-war movement barely exists in Britain and what there is has been hyped beyond any semblance to reality. Numbers at marches are grotesquely exaggerated. Tony Benn claims 10,000 rallied at Trafalgar Square on 11 April there were no more than 4,000. On 8 May, march organisers claimed 25,000 for the London demonstration against the war. In reality, it barely exceeded 5,000, many of whom left before the rally started in Hyde Park. 1,000 demonstrated in Manchester on 24 April; stewards doubled this figure to 2,000.
There is of course purpose in this: it is to bolster the view that there are huge numbers of Labour supporters and members who oppose NATO’s actions, and that if the movement does not mention the sordid role of either the Labour Party or the Labour government, then these people will be seduced into marching against the war.
The truth is that this will not happen. The ever-diminishing Labour left is split on the issue, and the average Labour supporter or member concerned only with his or her privileged position in life, which the war as yet does not touch. Hence the demonstrators are overwhelmingly the extra-Labour left and its periphery.
In the meantime, the left are policing their various committees against the war for any anti-Labour heresy like a modern-day Spanish Inquisition. Our Torquemadas are determined that only the true faith — in the absolute saintliness of the Labour left — shall prevail. In the Northwest, any attack on the Labour Party has brought apoplectic responses from the SWP. At a meeting in Preston, for instance, a proposal that one of the slogans of the anti-war committee include something as anodyne as “Labour, stop the bombing” was deemed too radical and extreme by (once again) the SWP. Many years ago, when it still had tens of thousands of members, the Communist Party used to be the force providing troops for the Labour left when it wanted a gesture against the Labour leadership. Nowadays, that role falls to an equally enthusiastic and equally uncritical SWP.
RCG supporters have been active taking the anti-imperialist message onto the streets. Regular street meetings have been held using a special bulletin to expose the imperialist nature of the Labour Party, in and out of government. Sales of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! have nearly doubled during this time, and over 100 copies each of the Counterattack books, Labour — a party fit for imperialism and The New Warlords — from the Gulf War to the recolonisation of the Middle East, have been sold.
Forthcoming events:
National Demonstration:
Saturday 5 June
Assemble 1.30pm Embankment, London
Called by the Committee for peace in the Balkans
London
FRFI Supporters Group: (starting 7:30pm at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square -- nearest tube Holborn)
Monday 7 June: Labour left MPs the truth.
Monday 12 July: Subject to be announced.
Public meeting
Wednesday 30 June, 7.30pm: Labour Party warmongers in Europe.
For details of anti-war activities and street events, phone 0171 837 1688.
Lincoln
Street meetings against the war every Saturday 10.30 to 1.30 in the High Street near the war memorial.
For details of meetings, phone 01400 230 151.
Northwest
Street meetings against the war every Saturday 12.00 to 3.30.
12 and 26 June in Flag Market, Preston
19 June in Blackburn by Andy's Records by the Spiral.
Public meeting Sunday 4 July 2pm:
No to Labour warmongering! Break with Labour now!
Bangor Street Community Centre, Brookhouse, Blackburn.
