A little about The Stop the War Coalition and the largest political protest march in Britain – 15 February 2003.

Richard Maddox

ON 11 SEPTEMBER 2001, America endured a series of attacks against targets in New York and Washington DC.

On September 20 President George W Bush addressed a joint session of the US Congress and the American people announcing the start of a series of military actions that would become known as the ‘War on Terror’. ⁽¹⁾

… Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there.

It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated …

Al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988 and had carried out the attacks as well as others pre- and post- those on 11 September 2001. ⁽²⁾ 

There was much support – particularly in America – which had seen 2977 deaths of people from 115 different nations killed with thousands more injured directly in the attacks or who would develop life-threatening conditions as a result of being involved in rescue or clear-up operations. ⁽³⁾ 

However there was also great unease and a belief that the actions of America and its efforts to bring together a multi-national military force to hunt down terrorists across the globe would cause untold casualties to many more innocent people.

In Britain the Stop the War Coalition was founded on 21 September 2001 at a public meeting with the aim of ‘… stop[ping] the war currently declared by the United States and its allies against ‘terrorism. We condemn the attacks on New York and we feel the greatest compassion for those who lost their life on 11th September 2001. 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. The aims of the campaign would be best expressed in the name Stop the War Coalition.’’ ⁽⁴⁾ 

In 2003 it was instrumental in a campaign against British military action in Iraq that saw an estimated 2,000,000 people protest on the streets of central London.

A decade later it opposed British action in Syria. ⁽⁵⁾ 

The organisation continues to be active in a diverse field of issues, including Palestinian human rights, opposing racism and Islamophobia, the defence of civil liberties, protest against the visit of President Donald Trump to Britain in 2019 and opposing what it views as unjust wars.

THE BADGE WAS produced to rally support against the Iraq War. Many were worn by the estimated two million people who marched in central London on 15 February 2003 to oppose British military action. This protest march is generally seen as the largest in British political history. Worldwide, further tens of millions marched. Image © IWM. IWM catalogue reference IWM Art.IWM EPHEM 00445. Original source https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/40193

In March 2022 a number of prominent  politicians from Britain’s Labour party withdrew their support for a political rally organised by Stop the War following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ⁽⁶⁾ 

This followed an article in the Guardian newspaper in which the Labour party leader, Sir Keith Starmer restated the party’s commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), support for Ukraine and accusing Stop the War of siding with Russia in the conflict. ⁽⁷⁾ 

On 5 March the Guardian published an article by the group’s convener Leslie German setting out Stop the War’s position on the conflict. ⁽⁸⁾

Source

⁽¹⁾ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html – retrieved 28 February 2022

⁽²⁾ https://www.counterextremism.com/threat/al-qaeda – retrieved 28 February 2022

⁽³⁾ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/9-11-september-11-what-happened-b1915092.html – retrieved 28 February 2022

⁽⁴⁾ https://www.stopwar.org.uk/aims-constitution-code-of-conduct/ – retrieved 28 February 2022

⁽⁵⁾ https://www.stopwar.org.uk/about/ – retrieved 28 February 2022

⁽⁶⁾ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/02/john-mcdonnell-and-diane-abbott-pull-out-of-stop-the-war-rally – retrieved 2 March 2022

⁽⁷⁾ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/10/labour-nato-british-left-ukraine-keir-starmer – retrieved 2 March 2022

⁽⁸⁾ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/04/stop-the-war-condemn-invasion-ukraine-warmongers – retrieved 5 March 2022

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