Labour Party: Blood on their hands!

The Labour Party has voted for war. It has voted to kill more Iraqi children and more innocent civilians. This should be no surprise. The Labour Party has always been a war party: it has always been prepared to kill innocent people to protect the interests of British imperialism. Now the Iraqi people face a barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles and thousands of bombs which will murder thousands and reduce their country to ruins. With the world distracted, Israel is preparing further bloody repression of the people of Palestine.

The United Nations is dead

This war marks a new stage in the post-Soviet world order: With the support of Labour imperialists, the US has shattered the system of international relations the UN represented. To maintain global domination, the US no longer needs or wants other nations to interfere. With its economy facing deepening crisis and massive indebtedness, and the euro challenging the dollar's global supremacy, the US must hold on to its economic ascendancy. It is trying decisively to change the balance through unilateral military power.
Until now, the UN had been a forum where the imperialist powers tried to regulate their relationships as they jointly plundered the world. Britain would veto resolutions which challenged its interests in Southern Africa. The US would do the same in relation to Israel and the Middle East. But the global crisis has turned the brotherhood of thieves into warring cut-thoats. The proposed French veto threatened the interests of the US and Britain. So together the US and Britain have changed the rules of the game. International law is now to be determined by force - by war. The UN is dead!

Britain's imperialist interests

In the lead up to the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, the then Labour Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, declared that 'nowhere in the world is so far away that it is not relevant to our security interests.' This war, the 100th overseas military campaign by British armed forces since World War II, is equally in pursuit of British strategic interests. The British ruling class is defending its overseas assets and oil interests, second only to those of the USA, and the global financial role of the City of London. British imperialism is using its alliance with the US to raise its global status relative to that of France and Germany, and to force them to defer to it within the European Union. Imperialism is at the heart of Labour's strategy. The Labour Party believes in this strategy as much as Tony Blair.

Labour: always a racist, imperialist party

Left Labour MP George Galloway tells us that the Labour government's foreign policy is 'far from Labour'. This is a complete lie. Labour has always been prepared to use military power to defend British imperialism.

Between 1945 and 1951 Labour:

• Brutally suppressed the Malayan national liberation struggle;
• Used troops to restore French colonial rule in Vietnam;
• Blockaded Iran after it nationalised the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company;
• Ruthlessly exploited the British Empire in Africa to aid British post-war reconstruction.

Between 1964 and 1970, Labour:

• Unconditionally supported the US onslaught on Vietnam;
• Defended apartheid South Africa, blocking all attempts to impose sanctions in the UN;
• Sent troops into Ireland in 1969;
• Tortured suspected freedom fighters in Aden.

Between 1974 and 1979, Labour:

• Continued to defend apartheid South Africa in the UN;
• Supported the Shah of Iran as he faced a mass popular uprising;
• Began selling Hawk aircraft to Indonesia during the genocidal war against East Timor;
• Ran a ruthless torture regime against Republican prisoners in the North of Ireland.

Throughout this period Labour has been a Zionist party. Its 1944 conference called for the expulsion of the Palestinian people to make way for a Zionist state. In a cynical ploy it recently begged the US to publish a 'road map' for Palestine to show its support for a Palestinian state. It has not said a word about the escalating slaughter in Gaza of Palestinians over the past few weeks.
In 1982, Labour in opposition supported the Malvinas War, and in 1991, the first Gulf War. In the last six years, Labour has waged more wars than the Tories did in the preceding 18. Yet no Labour MP has resigned from the Labour Party because of this record of incessant international aggression. The likes of Galloway, Jeremy Corbyn, and Robin Cook want to have their cake and eat it. They want to criticise the Blair government but remain in the racist, imperialist Labour Party. They are no opposition at all.

Break with Labour! Build a mass anti-imperialist movement!

Last December the Labour left penned a letter calling on Blair not to go to war without the express support of the United Nations. They hoped that the UN would absolve them of their responsibility to oppose British imperialism. Now they have to be called to account. Labour has always been a party of war-mongering imperialism. It is not enough to call on Blair to resign. We must also call on Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway and the other so-called 'left' Labour MPs to resign from Labour: Even more: anyone still a member of the Labour Party who values social justice must rip up their membership card as Bertrand Russell did during the Vietnam war. Simple! No more excuses! Then we stand a chance of building a genuine, democratic and grassroots movement in Britain which rejects the whole rotten system of imperialism and puts the interests of the working class, the poor and oppressed to the fore.

No to War! No to Sanctions!
Victory to the Intifada! Hands off the Middle East!
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite to destroy imperialism!

For further information about Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and its activities, phone 020 78371688, or write to FRFI, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX or e-mail rcgfrfi@easynet.co.uk. Visit our website at www.revolutionarycommunist.com