Tens of thousands tell Blair ‘time to go!’

Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters greeted Tony Blair and Labor Party delegates on Sept. 23, the eve of the annual Labor conference in Manchester, England.

Organized around the theme “Time to go!” and calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, protesters filled the sprawling Albert Square in the center of this working-class city, the third largest in Britain. They then marched for two hours around the city center, culminating in a mass “die-in” meant to symbolize the thousands of deaths across Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine caused by U.S.-British wars of aggression. Hundreds of infants’ shoes were laid in St. Peters Square in central Manchester to symbolize the deaths of children in these wars.

“More than 80 percent of British people think Tony Blair should stop supporting George Bush’s war-mongering policies which have brought nothing but chaos, death and devastation,” said Andrew Murray of the sponsoring Stop the War Coalition.

Prime Minister Blair, who is often ridiculed in the local press as “Bush’s poodle,” has been pummeled at the polls due to mass opposition against the war. Just this week a Guardian poll found that 63 percent agreed with the statement that Blair had made Britain “too close to the USA.” In the face of these pressures, Blair has recently announced that he plans to resign within the next year.

There was strong trade union support for the protest, and the marchers’ ranks were bolstered by striking workers from NHS (National Health Service) Logistics and Merseyside Fire Brigades Union. The event was endorsed by 14 national trade unions. The leaders of Britain’s two biggest unions addressed the crowd.

Other speakers included Moazzam Begg, a British citizen who was held for three years at the U.S. prison in Guantánamo; British MP George Galloway; and Rose Gentle of Military Families Against the War. Gentle and other parents who lost sons in Iraq organized a “peace camp” near the hotel where Blair and government officials were staying. The Manchester City Council had originally banned the encampment, but at the last minute caved to mass protest and allowed the peace camp to proceed.

Manchester has always held a rich place in the working-class history of Britain. It was here that Frederick Engels penned his classic “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844,” where he described the horrific oppression of English workers and showed the role that they were destined to play in the abolition of capitalist exploitation. The last time the British Labor Party held its conference in Manchester was 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution.

Driven by the war crisis, new winds of change are blowing at the doors of the ruling party. “We have written a page in Manchester’s history,” said protest organizer Lindsey German, summarizing the day’s events, “I don’t think this is a message Labor can ignore.”