Brian Haw remembered

by New Worker correspondent

A bronze statuette of Brian Haw the peace campaigner was unveiled at the Imperial War Museum in London last weekend. Brian Haw camped out in Parliament Square for over ten years in protest against Anglo-American aggression in Iraq and imperialist wars throughout the rest of the world. Despite the best efforts of the police to hound him out Brian maintained his vigil until ill-health forced him to leave shortly before his death in 2011.
Brian Haw was a little-known evangelical Christian, motivated by the pacifist teachings of Jesus of Nazareth that are often ignored by many of those who profess to believe in him, who travelled to northern Ireland and Cambodia to preach “love, peace and justice for all” in the 70s and 80s. But he hit the headlines with his one-man protest against the imperialist aggression against Iraq.
He set up his tent opposite the so-called “Mother of Parliaments” in June 2001 to protest against the cruel imperialist blockade against Iraq that preceded the invasion and occupation by Anglo-American imperialism in 2003.
Brian was never short of company. Peace campaigners made a point of visiting his tent in the heart of London to help or spend some time in solidarity with the protest, which grew as Haw decorated the square with his home-made posters and peace banners condemning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This rapidly became an alternative London tourist attraction. But it was also an embarrassment to the Establishment and it soon attracted the unwelcome attention of the police.
For over ten years Haw maintained his round-the-clock vigil, braving all weathers and violent attacks from thugs and the police. He defied all threats to evict him, including an abortive new law to restrict demonstrations within half-a-mile of Parliament. In 2006 the police succeeded in obtaining authority to remove and confiscate Brian’s entire display. Fortunately the 40 metre long display was entirely recreated by the artist Mark Wallinger who won the 2007 Turner Prize for his exact replica of the encampment, entitled State Britain, that was exhibited in the Tate Modern art gallery. And supporters and friends maintained the protest tent when ill-health forced Haw to seek treatment for cancer in Germany paid out of a fund raised by British peace campaigners. 
In February 2023 a group of supporters and friends launched a campaign to create a permanent public reminder of Brian Haw's crusade for peace that raised the £25,000 needed to create the monument 
The ceremony was unveiled by three of his children while the famed actor, Sir Mark Rylance, paid tribute to Brian’s  "bright sense of conscience".  The actor, who is a patron of the Stop the War movement, said "His great call was to stop killing the children...no matter what conflict we have as adults, they didn't create that conflict and we should find a peaceful way of resolving the conflict". And, appropriately enough, the words “Stop killing the kids” are inscribed underneath his likeness.  

A new challenge to NATO's domination

Chris Williamson speaks

by Theo Russell

The launch of No2NATO – No2War last Saturday at the Bolivar Hall in London marked an historic new page in the British peace movement, with a new organisation challenging the domination of NATO in British and global politics and calling for an end to sending billions in arms to the Ukrainian government.
    N2N-N2W is the initiative of George Galloway's Workers Party and expelled Labour MP Chris Williamson’s Socialist Labour Party.
    In an atmosphere of censorship and demonisation of any criticism of the UK's unconditional support for the Kiev junta, two previous attempts to hold a N2N-N2W meeting were cancelled after the venues were deluged with threats and hate-mail. The venue for Saturday's meeting was withheld until the last minute.
    But the enormous pent-up demand for a new organisation that understands the reality of the Ukraine conflict was proven when the event was fully booked weeks in advance, and even then each of the three separate sessions held on Saturday – with many unable to get a seat – had twice as many people as both the recent Stop the War Coalition meetings on Ukraine in London and many more would have attended had enough tickets been available.
    This reflects the mealy-mouthed liberal position of the Stop the War Coalition, which held only one national meeting in eight years prior to the Russian intervention, and which instead of condemning the shocking repression and violence of the fascist-infested Zelensky regime calls for the Russian and Donbas forces to withdraw, leaving the people of the Donbas and many other parts of Ukraine at the mercy of fascists and Banderites who regard them as sub-human pro-Russian traitors.
    Opening one of the sessions, Galloway said: "The talking tailor's dummy Jens Stoltenberg recently revealed that NATO had been actively involved in Ukraine for at least six years prior to the western-backed coup in 2014."
    He described the current phase of the war as "a volcanic, tectonic shift which has accelerated by two decades the prize of a multipolar world", and said that in the West "the political dwarves we have elected are presiding over the rapid economic, cultural and social decline of their countries”.
    Galloway lambasted Washington’s warnings to countries not supporting NATO in Ukraine, declaring: "The days when China could be ordered around by anybody are over, over, over!
    “When South Africa was attacked for holding naval exercises with Russia and China, it responded by saying that the only countries which gave us weapons and bullets when we were fighting for our freedom were Russia and China."
    "The world is not against Russia and China", he said, "the 'West' is only 13 per cent of the world's population, and even in the West there are millions and millions of us who reject your domination".
    Fiona Edwards from No Cold War told the meeting: "Western governments want to silence and discredit us, but we want to say no to war and yes to peace." She condemned the incredible hypocrisy of governments which have fought wars in Asia and North Africa with huge civilian casualties, economic and social devastation.
    "The greatest threat to humanity is the warmongers in Washington and their NATO allies. Having caused this war, they are now escalating it, and for them the people of Ukraine are nothing more than cannon fodder. We need peace, an end to sending billions in arms which we need for our hospitals, schools and public sector workers."
    Fiona Edwards pointed out that a 50,000 strong demonstration in Denmark had succeeded in stopping savage cuts to finance higher defence spending, showing the potential strength of peace movements backed by working people.
    Andy Hudd, ASLEF Vice President, said: "I'm a socialist, but I'm not a pacifist because unfortunately in this world workers have to defend themselves. I'm a socialist because it's only in a socialist world we will get peace, and an end to the bloodshed of the working class in the interests of the wealthy and privileged."
    Hudd criticised the response of British trade unions and the Labour Party to the war in Ukraine, pointing to the GMB-backed TUC motion last year supporting increased military spending "on the back of food banks and overworked, underpaid nurses, poverty on a scale we've never seen before". He said the TUC had supported Stop the War resolutions and at the same time sending arms to Ukraine.
    "Trade unionists should be calling for solutions which bring security for Russia and Ukraine, and supporting campaigns against NATO and for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine."
    Chris Williamson said that he had believed that being an MP “was a platform to achieve positive change, but I discovered that almost every Labour MP only cared about their careers".
    "We are told that Zelensky is defending democracy, but he's banned any political opposition, and he's even going for the Orthodox church. The Labour Party is calling for more arms to be sent, while a Ukrainian woman received a 10-year sentence for posting communists on social media. This is the regime which burnt to death dozens of trade unionists in Odessa in 2014. We're told to support people like that – I say never, never, never!
    "No2NATO has been attacked by toadying trolls and sycophantic media hacks who have pulled out all the stops to prevent this meeting today. But we can only go from strength to strength, because what we are asking for is pure common sense."
    Chris Williamson's call for the immediate release of Julian Assange was met with a prolonged standing ovation by the entire audience.
    Former British diplomat and now peace campaigner Craig Murray said that in the 1950s Russia's military arsenal was only 40 per cent of NATO estimates, and that: "Today we are being told that Russia is planning to march to Berlin, Brussels and even London. All this is designed to justify massive military spending by NATO members."
    A motion backing the appointment of an interim leadership of No2NATO – No2War comprising George Galloway, Chris Williamson and Andy Hudd was adopted unanimously by the session.
    Members of International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity distributed around 1,000 leaflets and received a warm welcome from all at the meeting, and the 25th March Whitehall protest against the fascist terror in Ukraine was announced from the platform several times.
    We can only look forward to the future of N2N-N2W, and building a new peace movement that is genuinely against the all-powerful domination of NATO and US-led imperialism in the West.

Remembering Brian Haw

by New Worker correspondent

PEOPLE gathered in Parliament Square last Sunday to mark the sixth anniversary of the death of Brian Haw – the peace campaigner who spent almost a decade camped in the Square facing the House of Commons with an array of placards, posters, banners and a microphone reminding MPs of the horrors of war, especially to children.

In 2001 Brian Haw had been affected by the Mariam appeal and the effect of United States sanctions against Iraq on the children there, who could not get enough food or medicines for the cancers that resulted from the use of depleted Uranium weapons in the First Gulf War.

He said he could not face his own seven children if he did not do something, so he began his permanent protest on 2^nd June, 2001 and maintained it until January 2001.

Brian Haw had to fight off many attempts by right-wing MPs and Westminster council to have him forcibly removed, and he was badly beaten up by police on more than one occasion. But he attracted the support of other peace campaigners who helped him with his battles, legal and physical, and some joined his camp for a while.

Brian was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2010 and in January 2011 he left England for treatment in Berlin, funded by his supporters. He died there on 18th June 2011.

The memorial event was organised by Veterans for Peace.

Why did workers flock to sign up for the First World War?

A serious topic but still time for a laugh: Prof Putkowski left

By New Worker correspondent

IN THE early years of the 20th century working class awareness and socialist ideas were growing. The leaders of the labour movement recognised the imperialist nature of war and opposed it.

And yet once the First World War was declared in August 1914 thousands of working class men flocked to join the army, most of them during the first three months of the war.

Professor Julian Putkowski last Monday evening delivered a very interesting account of his researches into the reason for this flood of volunteers at a well-attended meeting in Housmans Bookshop, organised by Veterans for Peace.

“How come so many working class people dutifully marched off to war?” he asked. “The scale of change in the national outlook was perplexing.”

He pointed out that Britain, unlike most European countries, did not have a conscript army at that stage. Britain’s defence investment had for centuries favoured the Royal Navy and, in peacetime, the army was effectively a mobile back-up police force.

When war broke out a massive recruitment campaign was necessary to get men to volunteer.

Julian Putkowski told the meeting that the education provision for the working classes, through compulsory board schools, was rudimentary, heavily loaded with religion, nationalism, racism and a culture of unquestioning obedience to authority.

But there was a stronger motive than that, which drove hundreds of thousands of men to the recruiting officers: hunger.

The start of the war coincided with an economic crisis. Official unemployment figures were not so high but millions were trapped in unskilled casual employment whose income was precarious and changed from day to day – never mind week to week.

Once the war had been declared the United States stopped sending cotton to Lancashire – they were afraid of losing valuable ships and cargoes to German submarine attacks.

This brought the cotton mills to a full stop and all the other peripheral industries and trades that went with them – throwing thousands of people into poverty.

It also brought ports to a standstill – merchant ships were afraid to set sail to and from the Channel and North Sea ports. Thousands of dockers were laid off.

In London and other big cities, service industries including domestic service that provided thousands of low-paid jobs were cutting back wining and dining and travelling. The earnings were low but vital to working class households where the women and children of any age were engaged informally in producing knick-knacks and decorations, or in street trading.

A big factor in the attraction of the army was the recent extension of dependants’ allowances for serving soldiers.

These economic pressures did not last; within months the demands for munitions and army uniforms had improved employment opportunities and women were welcomed into trades previously done only be men. And the Government had offered insurance to merchant shipping lines to get trade moving again. But for the first three months of the war, it was literally sign up or starve for hundreds of thousands.

And the recruiting doctors were passing almost anyone as fit to serve, they were not fussy and there was pressure on them to accept as many as possible. Many under-age boys were accepted after being advised to lie about their age.

Throughout the war a total of 2.5 million signed up and the first million of those joined between August and November 1914. The peak was in September.

Later, as employment prospects improved and accounts of the reality of fighting at the front filtered back to Britain, volunteering declined and the Government introduced conscription, sending another 2.5 million into the war.

Few socialist leaders opposed the war but they included Kier Hardy and Sylvia Pankhurst.

Professor Putkowski will be addressing more meetings on the topic of resistance to war in the near future – to be notified. And Veterans for Peace have organised a memorial meeting for Brian Haw, the peace campaigner who camped opposite Parliament for many years, this Sunday 18th June at 2pm in Parliament Square.

No Pride in War!

 by New Worker correspondent

Last Saturday some marked “Armed Forces Day” with parades and displays glorifying the armed wing of British imperialism. Others, like Veterans for Peace, celebrated the day in their own way in London last weekend

. The veterans’ peace  movement held a counter-recruitment presence outside Charing Cross station Saturday morning before heading off to join other groups under the banner "No Pride in War" to protest the presence of the Red Arrows and BAe Systems at this year’s Pride in London parade.Veterans for Peace UK was set up in 2011 by a former member of the Special Air Service who was discharged after refusing to continuing serving in Iraq. The movement for veterans of the armed forces is committed to opposing all wars through non-violent means.