Andy admits that STW has recently “published a couple of silly articles” and says that this was a deviation from the general picture. This leaves any further offerings by Mr. P. Burton-Cartledge requiring the kind of scrutiny one reserves for all other propagandist works of deliberate misdirection. Weekly Worker 521, All posts and comments are © their respective authors. Whereas those they have campaigned and marched against have in the same time been responsible for what now must be a million or more deaths as a direct result of their actions. The Guardian. But then Andy goes on to make an argument that seems to me to bear out Phil’s concerns. This conjunction of the SWP and the MAB led to the STWC drawing a clear link between war in Iraq with Israel/Palestine. Most of the arguments claiming to link the Israel/Palestine issue to the Iraq issue tended to be simply comparisons – the malign effect of US foreign policy in the Middle East , a perceived oppression of Muslims by the West, track records on failing to observe UN resolutions – rather than actual concrete links between the two countries and conflicts. The cost for the left in bestowing this ridiculously “substitutionist” “historically progressive” anti imperialist role on these universally ghastly regimes has been to turn a cynical blind eye to their systematic murderous oppression of their own working classes , socialists, and minority communities. They are barely friends of the Kurds. A consequence of this was the involvement of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), which, along with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, would co-sponsor the Stop the War protests. Jesse Jackson, the London mayor Ken Livingstone, the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, and the pop star Ms. Dynamite. http://www.workersliberty.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=570&mode=thread&order=0 But any war will simply add to the numbers of innocent dead, cause untold suffering, political and economic instability on a global scale, increase racism and result in attacks on civil liberties.[1]. sorry comrades,stop the war coalition are parasites on the backs of all decent human beings and humanity,how the hell can you defend this evil virus called stop the war coalition that compares the isis mass raping of women and children,beheading of the innocents with there arms tied behind there backs,genocide of christians and non sunni muslim minoritys to freedom fighters who fought francos fascists in spain,how dare you defend these vile sectarian and anti semetic racists and bigots of stop the war coalition,deep shame on the lot of you. I thought Phil BC’s piece was a bit over the top but I also found Andy N’s response unconvincing. So Karl, in short….No to Washington, No to Moscow, No to Islamic fundamentalism, No to Freemarket fundamentalism…and Stop the War is in alliance with at least 2 of them! Motion 1: Trump’ s m ilitary e scalation and the Special Relationship from the Officers group Conference notes that in the first period of his term, US President Trump has demonstrated a definite preference for military … In today’s Iraq/Syria/Middle East crisis, the simplistic cod pacifism of the StWC in the last Iraq war simply doesn’t cut it as a mobilising mantra any more. A witch hunt that is not because StWC positions or internal practices but because it is the main organisation that combats their own permanent war/colonial regime change mentality and so is seen as a threat, and more importantly right now it is seen as a way to attack and undermine Jeremy Corbyn. Since the start of the uprising in 2011 STW has refused to acknowledge the agency of the oppressed Syrian people struggling against a fascist regime or to … You and your fellow-thinkers are in fact stooges of the Assad regime, and in refusing to support the right of the secular Kurdish forces right to fight Daesh’s clerico-fascism “by any means necessary” you are by absence of solidarity action , indirectly complicit in the crimes of Daesh too. What “supporting evidence” do you require, David? I would have preferred that Phil had focussed more on what STW actually says and does (or doesn’t say and doesn’t do) than on trying to track the SWP lineage behind it all. By becoming a Stop the War member today, you’ll be part of a mass anti-war movement. Although the Israeli government strongly supported the US in its stance on Iraq , Israel remained a neutral country during the Iraq War. House of Commons Library. I don’t know much about STWC. Join Stop the War. However, the impression gained from the inside was that the main conduits of its development were hard-left groups such as the SWP, the Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Party and Workers Power, Islamic groups and mosques, trade unions, peace organisations such as the CND, environmental groups such as the Green Party, and the left wing of the Labour Party. Because of the strong influence of the SWP on the Coalition, the STWC has inherited some of the SWP’s strengths (notably the ability to organise and coordinate protests on a large scale), but also many of its weaknesses (crass dogmatising, reducing complicated issues to a banner-sized slogan, kneejerk anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment, unwillingness to criticise totalitarian regimes that suit their ideological outlook). Anti-Coalition Liberal to stand in Oldham, US regrets reduced UK military capabiility for foreign intervention – the rest of us don’t, Dave Prentis re-elected general secretary amidst allegations of ballot rigging, The grotesque chaos of Claire Kober’s Haringey. [4] Once a vehement opponent of Saddam’s regime, he now classes Saddam’s deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz as a friend, saying of him, “I admire Tariq Aziz, very much. I have seldom read such a conglomeration of non-sequitur statements and dishonest arguments marshalled in one article. Very long post, John – though very true. I think that intelligent debate starts with the assumption that people, including oneself, can reach wrong conclusions for plausible and well-motivated reasons. In fact the unravelling of the post 1918 current state boundaries may have gone so far now that no solution on current boundaries is possible. A more effective technique might have been to produce well-researched, well-argued critiques of the arguments for war, which could then be presented to MPs and journalists in large-scale lobbying efforts and media campaigns. Stop the War has since been dedicated to preventing and ending the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Your help is vital for us to continue our work. The Stop the War Coalition annual general meeting on 22 April 2017 passed the following motions. The best that’s Left in Labour. Further, for you to say that foreign affairs is a marginal concern for voters is a device to place such debate beyond the democratic process because it raises uncomfortable questions about power that too often liberal and social democrat interventionists don’t want to face ( Trident is another example which until Corbyn was a no go area within Labour ). That is of so much more importance to us as a party which wants to connect, inspire and change masses of voters…so – hopefully- lets have no more about this gruesome organisation. '[6], Also prominent in the Stop the War Coalition leadership were the activists of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a Trotskyist organisation wedded to the principle of protest politics. StWC are the organisation that stated, after Russia invaded and occupied a neighbouring country before covertly invading and instigating a further proxy war “if we have to pick one side, let it be Russia”. The West launches one specious war after another on developing nations and you insult the major voluntary organisation in the UK that seeks to resist our imperial aggression. I’ve always opposed sectarianism and the sectarianism displayed on the contributions on this site has been disgraceful while we are trying to fight both a witch hunt against Jeremy and the UK/NATO permanent war and bombing against one country after another. (November 2003) George Cross: George Galloway MP. No response yet to my question: how come StWC has appointed as its Chair someone who *supports* the bombing of Syria? This caused something of a chain reaction as STWC protests came to be seen as extreme-left/Islamist events, providing a further disincentive for moderates either to stay with or join the STWC. I say no to all of them. Just over a month after the giant march of February 15 th – arguably the STWC’s greatest achievement – came its greatest failure, and one that sent the organisation into terminal decline. 3Stop the War is NOT a genuinely pacifist entity, but rather – as Phil rightly put it- an anti Western entity doing everything it can go destroy the UK, the US. Notes BBC News Online. Unfortunately, underlying the simplistic but at the time of the Iraq War, tactically adequate, mobilising slogans , was all the usual gross soviet era sourced misrepresentations of what “imperialism” actually is today. 5. http://www.stopwar.org.uk/about.asp The Stop the War Coalition (StWC; informally Stop the War) is a British group established on 21 September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, to campaign against what it believes are unjust wars. However, a number of factors suggest that the STWC’s influence was actually probably very weak. He starts of with three assertions about the wisdom of STW on three issues (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya). Stop the War. Balloons [credit] and crowd scene [credit]. (October 9 2002) Evaluating the Threat of Military Action Against Iraq . With all due respect to him, I don’t think it’s unfair to describe him as someone who is on a rightwards political trajectory – from the Socialist Party into the Labour Party and then supporting Yvette Cooper in the leadership election. And the support of StWC for the mass slaughter of Syrian by the `legitimate’ regime of Assad puts these people on the other side to any divide I want to be on. For example, the appointment of Andrew Murray, who sits on the politburo of the Communist Party of Britain, to the chair of the STWC was to cause PR problems for the STWC when it emerged that he had written an article in Morning Star to commemorate the 120 th anniversary of Stalin’s birth. Thanks to Gerry and Co, you’ve made me actually look at the StWC website (where I enjoyed catching up with great writers like John Pilger and Tariq Ali), and where I saw the interview with Richard Burgon MP which I’d previously missed -http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news/richard-burgon-mp-criticism-on-stop-the-war-are-proxy-attacks-on-corbyn – and who said everything I was thinking about this being a proxy attack against Jeremy. I don’t think that assumption can be justified and, frankly, even as an old-timer who tries to keep up I have to say that all that stuff is not known to me (I have less than a passing interest in the activities of far-left groupings). But I think you are rather missing the point, then he wouldn’t care of the German Why We Need an Anti-War Government. [9] Likewise, the aid agencies Caritas Internationalis and Save the Children UK produced their own reports detailing the likely humanitarian consequences of war. The involvement of the MAB in the STWC has been controversial, especially when it emerged that the organisation is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Islamist organisation that operates in Egypt , the Sudan , Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East , where it has pursued an agenda that is thoroughly anti-democratic, anti-secular and anti-feminist.[7]. The following week saw marches that were little more than a collection of hard-left groups selling their newspapers to each other – a pitiful sight for an organisation that, less than two months earlier, had buried the streets of London under a sea of people. I would be surprised if many people could read the contributions in this thread and agree with you that trying to avoid strident and emotive condemnations is merely a matter of personal style and that debate can be advanced just as well without making that effort. 2 Stop the War is pro Putin, or as David Ellis so rightly puts it, it is the foreign desk of Putin in London. Slavery wasn’t a crime. I do not share the shock horror much expressed about either the Freedom Fighters blog or the Whirlwind blog – which were quoted out of context with all nuance stripped out, but hey, that’s politics, isn’t it? Sorry David Ellis, but all you achieve with contributions like that is to give people the impression that you’re a bit bonkers. 1. Most of the activist Left, not just the Trot groups and the old Stalinists of the CPB, and their allies in the Labour Party, really did, and do seem to think that “US/Western Imperialism ” is the only major barrier to world peace and socialism. Therefore these sort of short-hand references have a real capacity to make newcomers (and not only them) feel repelled by the strong emotions expressed about things for which they do not have immediate knowledge. It’s a sad, mad world you inhabit where those dropping bombs and indulging in regime change after regime change are ignored completely but those that protest against them are somehow the real enemy, but then imperialism always has had a host of supporters in the socialist movement, from H M Hyndman and others raging against the ‘Beastly Bosh’ to the pro-NATO, pro-Trident, pro-War ‘moderates’ now raging against Jeremy for having the affront to turn his back on the arms dealers and all their works. It allies with jihadis, islamists stalinists and neo stalinists against democratic socialists everywhere. The coalition has opposed the wars that are part of the so-called "War on Terror" of the Western nations. | Powered by, http://www.workersliberty.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=570&mode=thread&order=0, http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/notes/snSG-02109.pdf, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3550411.stm. Neira M. (March 25 2004) Leadership still lags behind the led. Given that open and informed discussion is something for which the Labour Party, not to speak of the left in general, does not have a strong tradition or culture I think we need to think carefully about the way we try to establish it. who reject Stop the War because they are a) anti-socialist in that they ally with groups who are self described enemies of socialism? Moreover, within weeks of the February protests, the STWC had gone into decline with startling rapidity. Many were repelled by sights such as Socialist Worker-sponsored placards bearing the words “Victory to the Resistance”, a repugnant sight to anyone who had marched against the war out of a principled opposition to what they perceived as an unnecessary war, not to become cheerleaders for Saddam’s fedayeen . 10. Benn, as with the Tories was completely unwilling to nail responsibility for the massive ongoing arms and financial support for Daesh and other extreme fundamentalist Islamic groups on Turkey and the Gulf states – as part of the proxy war being fought between themselves as Sunni powers against their Shia (and Alawite) powers of Assad’s regime, Iran, and Iraq’s sectarian Shia government (plus the cynical imperialist power , Russia – desperate to retain its Mediterranean warm water military port/base. But then Andy Newman, unreconstructed Stalin apologist as he is, is always notable for the sophistry required to deflect attention from the more unacceptable aspects of our very varied Left traditions. Stop the War Coalition (StWC) is an Australian anti-war group initially formed in Sydney in 2003 in response to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the general " War on Terror " of which the Australian Government has been a strong ally. Your comments are disgraceful. Have you not read Phil’s article or any of the many socialists. I know precisely what I make of those that have gleefully and disgracefully joined in such a witch hunt. Sticking rigidly to the “its all, solely Western imperialism’s fault” , requires StW to ignore the huge role of the lesser imperialisms of Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia – and of course Russia. Unless you demand from Government a shut down of all military factories and impose a total ban … Some contributions were free of this stuff but it should be evident that a serious debate cannot but be clogged up when so many feel that this sort of thing is a contribution to discussion. Undoubtedly there would have been extremely angry marches organised by the Stop the War Coalition and much else. To hate the UK/US is fine, but what is disgraceful is for you to use that hatred to justify your organisation’s most horrific political alliances: with jihadis, islamists, stalinists, neo stalinists, Putin, Assad. Gerry, yes I did read PhilBC’s article. Stop the War Coalition demonstration in Central London against military action in Syria. It does him no favours if we sweep the dark side of the StWC under the rug. Left Futures is a new Labour Left network. It is a coalition of the vilest supporters of genocide and gangsterism. And in response to your: “No to Washington, No to Moscow, No to Islamic fundamentalism, No to free market fundamentalism”, fair enough, that’s your opinion and, like PhilBC, you’re fully entitled to it. He served under Jeremy Corbyn from 2011 to 2015. Time for this revolting alliance of Putinites and pacifists to be wound up. Of course that doesn’t, of itself, invalidate his arguments, but it does indicate that his view is not necessarily typical of all socialists. But he is nevertheless right, of course, to say that it is important to hold the government to account on the use of the military. The most visible outward manifestation of this huge growth was the massive demonstration that took place on February 15 th 2003. You really need to be able to understand and grasp the notion of a broad-based single-issue campaign Gerry. First of all, it was arguably a mistake by the STWC to focus on protest marches as the main technique of campaigning. So when the secular, progressive Kurds ask for close air support from whoever will supply it to defend, for instance, Kobane – against the murderous women enslavers and pogromists of the clerico-fascist Daesh, the StWC Left simply ignores their plight. Stop the War has since been dedicated to preventing and ending the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Rylance is a patron of the London-based charity Peace Direct which supports grassroots peacebuilders in areas of conflict, and of the British Stop the War Coalition.