The Armies of Peace v the Government of New Labour

by John Law

The 15^th of February was an historic moment.  It was the day that over a million people gathered in London and millions more paraded in other cities throughout the world to show their support for the anti-war movement and to add their bodies in a visceral statement of opposition to the rag-tag coalition formed around the axis of Bush and Blair.  It was a day when the tide was shown to have shifted firmly in the direction of peace – at least for the moment.  Whatever happens next, the lights are dimming on Labour’s hold to power.  After their latest and most inexcusable betrayal of trust, they cannot survive as a government.  And so will end, ignominiously, New Labour’s ill-conceived experiment.  Blair, who tried to exchange his media-friendly, touchy-feely persona for the bull-dog guise of an arrogant Churchill; Straw, the former student militant who became the champion of America’s quest for world hegemony; Blunkett, the Home Secretary who wanted to show that blind people could also be tough and inhumane; John Reid, the hard-boiled enforcer attempting both to whip a reluctant party into shape while simultaneously bolting the barn door – all will go down and with them will go the party whose principles they have betrayed.  That the Labour conference held the very day of the march gave a standing ovation to Blair was indicative of the siege mentality that must now exist.  For as millions of their constituents were out on the street demonstrating against Blair’s threat of war, they rose and applauded the man who stood on the podium there in Glasgow defending his dreadful position with the most sanctimonious rhetoric, in a building surrounded by placards shouting ‘NOT IN MY NAME!’ held aloft by former labour voters who will never vote labour again.  Those who stayed and listened have chosen to go down with the sinking ship for the others who would have walked out have already done so.  The rest will find no forgiveness for their shameless timidity.  They can yet cling to power for a short while but it will be a brief and ugly transition with the locus of command shifting further toward a bunkered megalomaniac.  All this will happen since in a time of extreme crisis people are forced to take polarised stands and those who continue to beat the drums of war will be seen for what they are – either warriors themselves or captives of Cowboy Imperialism.  And that section of the electorate who desire peace and natural justice will go elsewhere.  Seeking a voice for real opposition, they will no longer be tied to Labour’s electoral apron strings.  Some, therefore, will choose other devices to make their voices heard and to make the pursuance of warrior politics extremely costly for the ‘leaders’ who perpetrate them.  The real lesson of the Blairite government is that it has proven yet again substantive change will not and cannot take place within the electoral arena.  Our leaders must be shown that they can only govern with the actual consent of the people – not with the phoney approval of manufactured opinions.  Those who are bent on war must be stopped - if not through the ballot box then by some other means.  15 February showed there is an army of citizens ready to make the needed sacrifices in order to wage peace.