The demonstration was very hard politically. People loved our placards with the Fight US/UK Imperialism slogan.
The SWP played a crucial role in building the London demo, we were like a red thread throughout the march. People were coming up to the SWP stalls thanking us for all the work we had put in to build the demo.
The task now is to
1. Build the 18 November StW demo in London
2. Build local, workplace & college StW groups
3. Go for local actions – picket ministers’ surgeries, hold street meetings etc
3000 Socialist Workers were sold on Saturday’s demo in London plus what was sold on the coaches down. 166 people joined the SWP. 373 Socialist Reviews were sold plus over 1000 Say No To Bush’s War pamphlets.
Everything Is Possible
We need to raise the expectations of what is possible both in terms of the anti-war movement & in building a revolutionary party.
The turnout on Saturday’s demonstrations & at the local meetings shows that we have entered a whole new ballgame. Comrades need to understand the scale of the opposition to the war. We can translate that into the local, workplace & college meetings.
Secondly, we need to raise expectations about how many SWs & our other publications we can sell & how many we can recruit.
Genoa and now the war show the idea that you can walk round the state, as Naomi Klein argued, is a non-starter.
The size of the SWP is key. In France the far left have made opposition to ‘terrorism’ on an equal footing to opposition to the war. That has meant the country with the biggest left in Europe & the biggest Arab community has had the smallest anti-war protests.
It was vital that the SWP argued largely successfully for unity round the simple Stop the War demand and rejected adding on denunciations of terrorism or Islamic fundamentalism.
SWP comrades have taken the lead in getting the workplace, college & school groups up & running.
That centres on building SWP groups. People are joining us with expectations we need to meet. They need to be pulled into activity immediately. That means they need to be part of functioning SWP groups based round workplaces, colleges, localities etc. They need from day one to be part of a weekly SW sale outside a workplace & on a street sale.
It also requires having well organised educationals. In each part of the country (North East, North West, Yorkshire, Midlands, SW & South Wales etc) we will be organising Day Schools for new members.
*Outside anti-war meetings we should make sure SW is sold well. Inside comrades should go round with the paper talking to people. We should encourage affiliated organisations like the Green Party & ourselves to have a stall.
*At every anti-war meeting or protest there should be a recruitment team.
*Organise caucuses before big anti-war meetings where we go through how we recruit, where we organise sales plus interventions. Discuss what arguments we need to address.

Socialist Worker Appeal
The respect Socialist Worker has was evident from Saturday’s demo. People can see the key role we are playing in the anti-war movement. They can see the posters, placards & stickers we are producing. You could see them in the marvellous pictures in The Observer & Sunday Mirror.
The only funding for SW comes from its readers & supporters. Just the material we produced in the build up to Saturday’s demo plus the placards & stickers cost several thousand pounds.
We need to encourage as many people as possible to donate to the SW Appeal.
*Every comrade should be asked to donate 2 days wages
*Every comrade should collect at work or in college
*Organise workplace collections from the outside (leaflet in advance to say when the collection is happening & select pay day).
So far £90,400 has been raised.

Brussels - 13/14 December
Anger against the neo liberals has not gone away because of the war. The demonstrations against the Brussels EU summit on 13/14 December are gaining strength. The Trade Union demo on Thursday 13 is going to be big. It’s called by the European Trade Union Federation, it’s backed by the TUC, & the French CGT say they are bringing 10,000 people! Protests on the 14 have been called by the left & look like getting NGO support. There will be anti war contingents on the demos.
Globalise Resistance is organising some coaches for London which will be travelling overnight on Wednesday 12 & returning Friday night. Contact them to book up (price being negotiated).
Get your union branch to pay for a delegation now and start collecting names & money to go.
Sign up sheet & a model resolution on the GR website (www.resist.org.uk)