MP George Galloway today warned fire chiefs that plans to remove a fire engine from his east London constituency would have to be carried out "over the bodies" of demonstrators.
The Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, who beat Labour's Oona King in one of the shock results of last month's general election, spoke as 200 local residents and trade unionists massed outside Bethnal Green fire station this morning in protest at cuts made by the London fire and emergency planning authority.

The cutbacks saw central London's Manchester Square fire station close today with the loss of two engines and 53 jobs. Bethnal Green is set to lose one of its two fire engines.
But Mr Galloway, who called the Bethnal Green protest with the backing of the Fire Brigades Union's London region, warned: "These cuts will cost lives of people in Bethnal Green and Bow."

The area had more tower blocks and overcrowded flats - danger areas for fires - than any other borough in London, he said

The MP warned fire chiefs: "If Respect in this borough is able to save this fire engine by stopping the authority taking it away, that's exactly what we'll do. We are only mobile telephone calls away.

"They will be forced to take that machine out over the bodies of those who have come to defend it."

The MP, who was expelled from the Labour party over his opposition to the war on Iraq, said the fight for the fire engine was of a piece with his anti-war stance.

"The same people killing Iraqis are taking our fire engine away, and they're doing both for the same reason," he said. "They support an economic and political system that wants to make the maximum profit from the earth while putting minimum public expenditure back in."

The LFEPA is expected to try to remove the fire engine on Thursday.