Tony Benn's Speech - Stop War Demo
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…and now to our next speaker. If he’d become the Leader of the Labour Party we wouldn’t have had this war. Our next speaker is a life long socialist and trade unionist. We are proud to present: Tony Benn.

[Crowd Cheers]

Comrades…

[Cheers]

Comrades I want to…

[Cheers]

I have been in Trafalgar Square, at meetings like this many times: nearly fifty years ago at the time of the Suez war, in 1964 when Nelson Mandela was imprisoned as ‘a terrorist,’ at the time of the Revonia trial, against the Gulf war in support of the miners and this is a place where movements are born and we today are building a world peace movement.

[Cheers]

What is happening now in Afghanistan is terrorism; everybody knows that. We know very well that this is a war for resources: for oil. That is why…. [Cheers] We recognise that after British imperialism ended American imperialism is coming to take its place. We know also that in order to pursue that war governments, including the British and American governments, are taking away our civil liberties which it took as many years to win. The present government is asking for powers to imprison people, in this country, without trial. In the United States president Bush has introduced military tribunals which will be able to arrest non-US citizens and will be able to sentence them to death without there being a jury or without the accused knowing the evidence against them. (So) this is a fight for our freedom as well as the freedom of the peoples of the world and what we have to do…

[Cheers]

We have now to build a world peace movement. All the religions of the world must unite together for peace. The trade unions must come together in support of one another against ‘globalisation.’ The women’s movement, the environmental movement all the movements that offer for us some hope of progress must now unite. They must now unite in a way that is strong enough to defeat the forces that oppose us.

I left Parliament in May to devote more time to politics and I… [Loud Cheers]. The war we are engaged upon has never been approved by the House of Commons. We have a passive parliament – with notable exceptions and they are on the platform today – a passive parliament and a cringing cabinet that does not even demand the right to discuss issues that affect… [cheers]… and therefore we must recognise that what we have taken on is a very big struggle but if we allow the philosophy of revenge to dominate our thinking we shall go back to the jungle with this difference – it will be a jungle with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

I spoke with Gerry Adams the other day, at a meeting in London, and he quoted the last words of Bobby Sands the Irish hunger striker and what Bobby Sands said was this, ‘our revenge will be the laughter of our children,’ comrades that’s what it’s about. We are building a world for the next generation, for the younger generation to see that they are spared with a... [Extensive Cheers] …and everyone who has been here today will be able to look back and say ‘We were in Trafalgar Square on November the Eighteenth Two Thousand and One laying the foundation for the movement the world desperately needs. Good luck. Thank you very much.

[Cheers]