Get British nuclear weapons out

This video from Britain is called ‘Why Not Cut Trident?’ by Dorothy Betts.

By Roger Bagley in Parliament in London, England:

Labour CND launches party of peace bid

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Labour Party peace activists launched a major push today for new anti-war policies which could inspire millions of disillusioned voters.

A spirited meeting of Labour CND members vowed to mobilise around key demands and spark a major debate throughout the party.

Scrapping Trident nuclear weapons and pledging a foreign policy against bloody military adventures abroad are central to the activists’ agenda, which was set out at a Westminster meeting on Monday night.

The immediate aim is to send a flood of demands to the party’s National Policy Forum and the Defence Policy Review in response to the leadership’s call for a discussion.

Veteran CND activist Walter Wolfgang declared that people who had lost faith in the party over the Iraq war must be won back.

“The more we discuss these issues, the more the Labour Party becomes an effective force, the more these people will come back,” he said.

Mr Wolfgang, who hit the headlines when brutish stewards threw him out of the 2005 party conference, said he felt “inspired” by Labour CND’s new inititiative.

“I believe we can win,” he said. “We can not only save our party in this country, we can also contribute to saving the world.”

London Metropolitan University lecturer and Iraqi refugee Sami Ramadani warned the meeting that civil war threatened to “engulf both Syria and the Lebanon,” leading to “a massive bloodbath” in the whole region.

The mass media was pumping out half-truths and playing on people’s humanitarian feelings, but the real picture in Syria was complicated, he said.

Syria was a “mosaic” of religious and ethnic divisions.

Bolton MP Yasmin Qureshi urged activists to engage with their Labour MP and ensure debates take place in every constituency party.

She pledged to vote against any proposed military attacks on Syria or Iran, just as she had voted against the Libyan intervention.

Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn declared: “Now is the time above all else to have this debate in the party.”

Labour CND provided a focus for alternative Labour Party policies which must be based on human rights, social justice, equality, not going to war and ending reliance on the arms industry.

A Stop the War Coalition protest against military intervention in Syria will be held opposite Downing Street on Thursday from 5.30pm to 7pm.

Amnesty International and Oxfam youth activists from across Britain will head to Westminster yesterday to demand the government fully backs a robust and effective new international arms trade treaty: here.

Scotland: The Case for Leaving NATO: here.