STATE and monopoly media have been salivating over the further escalation of the war in eastern Ukraine in recent days, clamouring for the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Long gone from the public narrative are any calls for peace and a cessation of conflict.
Even sections of the labour movement have been convinced to support Britain and Nato’s involvement in the proxy war being conducted in Ukraine.
Funnelling more weapons and throwing more Ukrainian conscripts into the fire are presented not only as the moral position but even the duty of anti-imperialists. This has given Establishment politicians and centrist commentators the gall to denounce the anti-war credentials of lifelong peace activists.
The labour movement has to seriously question being asked to line up with the Tory government, the British state and the arms manufacturers.
Fighting for peace doesn’t mean supporting the unjustified Russian invasion.
A working-class, internationalist opposition to this war is the only approach for the labour movement. And it’s a stance we should be proud of.
It’s time the finger was pointed back at the warmongers.
With tens of thousands killed already, the growing dangers of escalation of this war become more apparent every day.
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam today made global headlines, posing a massive humanitarian and ecological disaster as the war rages all around.
The New York Times reported just this week on the prominence of Nazi paraphernalia and symbols among Ukrainian forces.
The dangers of providing open neonazis and extremists with advanced Nato weaponry should be clear to all and presents a lasting danger not just to the people of Ukraine, but to all of Europe.
We have seen the impact of arming Islamist extremists in Libya and Syria by Nato on the broader region and the world.
Ever present is the risk of the conflict spilling out into a wider regional conflagration. Often forgotten is the fact that a proxy war involving nuclear-armed states presents an existential risk to humanity.
The task before us in the struggle for peace is a challenging one but it is one we cannot shrink from. And our movement’s past can inspire our future.
The first cold war and the threat of mutually assured destruction prompted mass peace and disarmament movements capable of bringing together millions of working people and different traditions including socialists, communists and faith communities.
The Stop the War movement from 2001 built huge coalitions against Western wars of aggression, linking these same traditions to the broad Muslim community.
Stop the War’s vindication as the Iraq war turned into a bloody catastrophe, and the lies that fuelled it were exposed, led to a deep public suspicion of our government’s predilection for war — which influenced the Labour-led revolt against bombing Syria under Ed Miliband in 2013. This reached a high point with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and the apology for the Iraq war in Parliament.
Corbyn’s own excellent and well-received speech in 2017 after the Manchester Arena bombings powerfully connected domestic terrorism to Britain’s imperialist wars of aggression and the arming of extremists.
In 2020, a survey of Labour members showed that Stop the War continued to be the most popular campaigning organisation among the membership.
Yet ferocious attacks have been waged against the peace movement from several directions, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The British state and other supporters of fuelling the war find it intolerable to have it pointed out that the risks of arming extremists in Ukraine echo Libya, or that the conflict has brought us closer to nuclear annihilation than at any time since the first cold war.
Our challenge is to build back to a truly mass, bottom-up, peace movement across Britain. We must take pride in our struggle and take inspiration from our past.
