We wanted to see if they had changed their mind. So we agredd the following text at our AGM - attended by 23 people.
I am writing to you both as a constituent and as secretary of Swindon Stop the war Coalition.
It is the policy of Swindon Stop the War Coalition to campaign against the election of MPs who support the war and the continued military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. We therefore intend to make a great deal of publicity over the issue during the next general election, urging people to vote for anti-war candidates. We will of course not be endorsing, either explicitly or implicitly any other party or candidate.
Nevertheless we recognise that people do change their minds, and should you have now reconsidered your position with relation to the war on Iraq, then we will not campaign against your re-election.
We do not wish to polarise personal relations with you or other members of the Labour Party. Particularly as Swindon Stop the War Coalition includes a number of activists who are also involved in other campaigns, and who therefore wish to preserve a fraternal working atmosphere. We have invited Alan Simpson MP, the Chair of Labour Against the War to speak in Swindon on 5th July, which we hope will demonstrate that the Coalition is not opposed to the Labour party as such, just against the specific policies related to the war.
Can you confirm whether you would have voted for the war last year had you been aware of the consequences, and had you been aware then of the facts which are now in the public domain?
Please bear in mind that no WMD have been found, there is an increasingly virulent popular insurrection in Iraq, and the road map for peace in Palestine has been wrecked by Israeli intransigence. In Afghanistan the aid that was promised for reconstruction of the country has not been given, and much of the country has reverted to warlordism.
Opinions differ within the anti-war movement about whether or not to call for an immediate withdrawal of British and American forces from Iraq. The Stop the War Coalition's view is that there can be no peace until all foreign forces withdraw, and that the conduct of military operations by the occupying forces is in fact making the situation worse. We therefore would like the British government to follow the example of the Spanish in effecting an immediate withdrawal of troops. We would be very interested in hearing you own personal views on how Iraq can be restored to peace and stability.
It is the policy of Swindon Stop the War Coalition to campaign against the election of MPs who support the war and the continued military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. We therefore intend to make a great deal of publicity over the issue during the next general election, urging people to vote for anti-war candidates. We will of course not be endorsing, either explicitly or implicitly any other party or candidate.
Nevertheless we recognise that people do change their minds, and should you have now reconsidered your position with relation to the war on Iraq, then we will not campaign against your re-election.
We do not wish to polarise personal relations with you or other members of the Labour Party. Particularly as Swindon Stop the War Coalition includes a number of activists who are also involved in other campaigns, and who therefore wish to preserve a fraternal working atmosphere. We have invited Alan Simpson MP, the Chair of Labour Against the War to speak in Swindon on 5th July, which we hope will demonstrate that the Coalition is not opposed to the Labour party as such, just against the specific policies related to the war.
Can you confirm whether you would have voted for the war last year had you been aware of the consequences, and had you been aware then of the facts which are now in the public domain?
Please bear in mind that no WMD have been found, there is an increasingly virulent popular insurrection in Iraq, and the road map for peace in Palestine has been wrecked by Israeli intransigence. In Afghanistan the aid that was promised for reconstruction of the country has not been given, and much of the country has reverted to warlordism.
Opinions differ within the anti-war movement about whether or not to call for an immediate withdrawal of British and American forces from Iraq. The Stop the War Coalition's view is that there can be no peace until all foreign forces withdraw, and that the conduct of military operations by the occupying forces is in fact making the situation worse. We therefore would like the British government to follow the example of the Spanish in effecting an immediate withdrawal of troops. We would be very interested in hearing you own personal views on how Iraq can be restored to peace and stability.
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ALL "Labour" MPs should be opposed ...
29.01.2005 10:00
There's also no escaping the straighforward logic that a vote for ANY "Labour" MP is a vote for Tony Blair, a vote for the War-Party.
So what do we know? This:
Just what have the anti-war voting Labour MPs done since their anti-war vote(s)?
1. Contributed to Tony Blair’s standing ovation at the 2004 Labour Party Conference political journalist and author George Monbiot reasonably reckons that a slow handclap to prevent Blair from speaking would have been the end of him)
2. All refused to sign up to the independent initiative to impeach Blair (or to remain signed up to it) instead of owning that initiative from the beginning.
3. Left it up to a fringe Labour group to bring a resolution to Conference to set a date for troops out of Iraq - again instead of this being their own initiative. The resolution was quashed behind “closed doors”.
In other words, they’ve done bugger all.
Have they not therefore shed all the honour that their initial
anti-war votes conferred?
Here's a recent EMail I sent to the Stop-The-War Coalition, and RESPECT:
[SUMMARY]
This idea is focussed, and gives focus. It attacks the root of the problem: Tony Blair and his Cabinet and other relevant arms of "Government", via its supporting branches: the Constituencies that support the root. It avoids diversionary activity. It's difficult, it requires a lot of work, but no more so, I believe than the anti-war movement is accustomed to. It might work; nothing else really has.
[END SUMMARY]
It costs £500 to enrol as a candidate for Parliament. See the links at the end of this E-Mail for other useful electoral information*.
To become a candidate requires in addition ONLY that the candidate is on the electoral register, and nominated by ONLY 10 registered voters in the Constituency the candidate wants to run in.
The CLINCHER, in my view, is this: For EVERY SINGLE candidate the Royal Mail provides one FREE mail-shot ("Election Communication"), up to 60 grams, from the candidate to EVERY registered voter in the Constituency. 60 grams is about 2 sheets of A4, with an envelope, or 3 sheets without (I'm in the Belly of the Beast, so I can't remember how the Royal Mail likes them prepared).
There were 44,691,871 registered voters at the last election.
So an average of 67,818 registered voters per each of the 659 Constituencies.
But the next Parliament will have only 646 Constituencies, so, that will be:
An average of 69,182 registered voters per Constituency.
Number of registered voters/"average" Constituency = 69,182
2nd. Class Postage would be = £14,528.32 - the "BENEFIT"
Candidate's deposit = £500.00 - the "COST"
BENEFIT/COST ratio = 29.06 (or 2,906% !)
So, back of the envelope stuff (pun intended), £500.00 gets you £14,528.32 worth of postage, no hassles with having to know (on average) 69,182 names and their addresses, prepare those addresses, and so on - all next to impossible feats outside of the election process. The Royal Mail already KNOWS where to send all those Election Communications. (I also briefly looked at Royal Mail's bulk mail offerings, which can get horribly complicated, and actually aren't as cheap as I thought they might be; using 2nd. class pricing here is appropriate, in my opinion).
So, I suggest that you drop virtually EVERYTHING else, and try to run candidates, or at least encourage independent self-financing anti-war candidates to run in EVERY, or nearly every Constituency - the (nearly) free election communication to carry your logo, and being in a standard form, prepared by you, distributed via the Internet, as with THIS SAMPLE*** (just to give the idea - I ran out of space/time***), with blanks left for variances (such as where appropriate, specific Constituency candidates bios/photo). The total cost to run in EVERY Constituency would be: £323,000; or less than 22p for each of the 1.5 million anti-war demonstrators alleged to be present at the "big one" - the anti-war demonstration that took place before the criminal aggression began.
Now, I'm not suggesting that each of those (largely unidentifiable) demonstrators be aske for 22p, ie: as a means of raising funds - it's just an indication of the relatively small amount of funds involved.
Some anti-war individuals are probably financially capable of coughing up the whole £500.00 themselves; otherwise the collection of the £500 from each Constituency would seem to be a relatively trivial matter, if this idea is made the MAIN FOCUS of campaigning between now and the general election.
Many if not most of these candidates would be "SLEEPER" candidates - ie: in Constituencies where the anti-war movement is satisfied with the incumbent, or with the likely winner. In other words, the main purpose being to, in effect, get 29p's worth of postage for every penny spent (the £500 is refunded, btw, in the event that more than 5% of the vote is received). In this way, a specific anti-war message, that perhaps an anti-war voting Lib-Dem, or Conservative would not want to specifically distribute themselves would receive the widest circulation possible. You'd need a lot of people standing on a lot of street corners for a lot of time, before you could hand out 44,691,871 anti-war leaflets.
Now that's a lot of postal election communications to prepare. 69,182 per "average" Constituency. So, in spite of the £14,028.32 (on average) of, in effect, free 2nd. Class mail, this would appear to be the major hurdle to this scheme. I haven't the slightest idea how much 69,182 (or 138,364 if 2 sheets are used) would cost to print. Ideally, of course printing would be on high quality glossy paper, with bright colours (such as the blood on Tony Blair's hands ;-) to attract attention. FORGET THAT. You would know better than me (and probably have the right contacts) what the costs of "less flashy" bulk printing would be; and this may put it out of range. In that case, this scheme lends itself to really quite fundamental grass roots involvement. Just as I posted a couple of Powerpoint slides (meant to comprise a single double-sided sheet) on the Internet to convey the idea, you could do so too, and your Election Communication downloaded and printed locally on individual Constituency bases.
Effort then further devolves at the Constituency level. Activists with computers (and reasonable quality printers) download the Election Communication - modified locally as appropriate to 'fit' the Constituency, (or take a disc with it on back home from a meeting, whatever), print off, fold, collate, (whatever the Royal Mail requirements are - they have an appropriate leaflet) as many as they are able/can afford to produce; to return to an agreed central collection point, for eventual collection/distribution into the Royal Mail system.
When you've got 69,182 of them: job done. I think the anti-war movement must have performed many such feats already. Sorry, I know I'm not your grandmother. ;-)
In Lib-Dem and Conservative Constituencies with anti-war voting MPs, you wouldn't have to campaign, whilst you might not want to specifically endorse the favoured candidate - I don't know, but I suspect there might be rules against that - there can't be anything against pointing out the anti-war (or indeed, otherwise) record of the mainstream candidates. (I'm thinking something along the lines: "I'm anti-war, vote for me ... for the record, the Lib-Dem incumbent did vote anti-war"). In this case, making sure that the particular piece of "free" postage involved doesn't hold a candidate bio, or even a photo - I feel extremely few will vote for a complete unknown - but a tailored message will have been transmitted - anti-war Constituents will already be in "the know".
So if in a certain case a Lib-Dem candidate looks likely to overturn a pro-war voting "Labour" incumbent (in my opinion ANY "Labour" candidate should be a target. irrespective of their vote or feelings on Iraq - a vote for ANY "Labour" candidate is a vote for Blair, and the anti-war voting incumbents have done BUGGER ALL since, - theirs IS the War-Party), then all possible and reasonable support - including via an independent "sleeper" candidate using their own £500 in order to express, "diplomatically", that support via the Royal Mail - should be given.
This scheme is pretty flexible: allowing for "sleeper" candidates, mentioned above, and, of course, those with more determination to oust either a pro-war voting, or a "Labour" MP, whatever their voting on the Iraqi agression was - a win for ANY "Labour" MP, is a win for Tony Blair.
In respect of those more serious candidates, I further suggest that you try to persuade well known celebrity critics of the "Labour" Government's Iraq (and Iran? and N. Korea? and Syria?) policy to stand under your banner. Python Terry Jones comes immediately to mind, though there must be surely many others. Such luminaries, if ?persuadable? (sic) could do well from the publicity point of view to stand against "Labour" Party prominents, such as Jack "the Ripper" Straw, and, of course, Tony B_Liar himself.
The publicity value of:
a) having such prominents running against "Labour" Party prominents, preferably under your banner (or less preferably, from the viewpoint of less uniformity of the "free" Election Communication: independently anti-war)
and/or
b) managing to run, again preferably under your banner, or at least what appears to be a unified banner, in every, or nearly every, Constituency; certainly in every Constituency with a pro-war voting incumbent, and in my view, in every Constituency with a sitting "Labour" MP (either as a sleeper to support a close anti-war contender, or "seriously")
... would gain national attention, and even the BBC and ITN, etc, would find it difficult to ignore.
Icing on the cake?
In addition to the free Post Office delivery of their election address to every home in the constituency, candidates are also entitled to the free use of rooms in public buildings for their election meetings.
Regrettably, all the huge anti-war efforts thusfar, including the largest demonstration in British history, if we are to look the facts soberly in the face, have been ineffective. 100,000 Iraqis are dead. The country and its people are devastated. British soldiers continue getting killed and maimed apace (and if any of us achieved that based on fakery, forgeries and just plain lies, we'd be in the dock accused of treason).
I think that as this Government has done the worst thing that any Government can do at any time, to any place: wage unprovoked war on false pretexts, that the old paradigm of party loyalty above all is inappropriate; that all that and more should be subserviant to doing as much damage as possible to that Government. That's why plain straightforward logic dictates that anti-war voting "Labour" MPs (who did little else afterwards, or anything effective) should be targets for anti-war activists as much, (now), as the pro-war voting MPs.
We've heard over this last decade propaganda about Hussein, then Milosevic, then back to Hussein, being the new Hitler. Complete nonsense. The US/UK have attacked, on false pretexts, two sovereign countries that were no threat to their neighbours, killed thousands of civilians, and laid waste to functioning infrastructure, even whole cities, with BlitzKrieg-like techniques, just as Hitler did against Poland. They've bombed the language first, as Terry Jones said - to turn the truth upside down.
In my view, anti-war people who don't, for example, like the Lib-Dems, or even more likely, the Tories, should swallow that dislike entirely in the Lib-Dem case - 100% anti-war vote; and also in case of the very few anti-war voting Tory MPs - only a 10% anti-war vote. In all cases, a vote for a Labour MP is a vote for Tony Blair, and the war party. That's a shame, but there it is. Even the anti-war voting Labour MPs have demonstrated that petty Party unity, and their own positions are more important to them than the worst crime that a Government can commit. "Good Germans" all.
I see this therefore, given what I have heard of the polls, as a last ditch effort in the anti-war campaign before the General Election.
I reiterate:
This idea is focussed, and gives focus. It attacks the root of the problem: Tony Blair and his Cabinet and other relevant arms of "Government", via its supporting branches: Constituencies that support the root. It avoids diversionary activity. It's difficult, it requires a lot of work, but no more so, I believe than the anti-war movement is accustomed to. It might work; nothing else really has.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Dennis Revell. Brit. Ex-Pat, USA, "Labour" Party Member, '80s - early 90's.
P.s: I wonder if you know of any anti-war contacts in the Worsley Constituency? If so, I would be most grateful if you would let me have them. I was born there, and all this started with the wild idea, born out of frustration, that I would pay £500 out of my own savings and eventual retirement to stand there; and also, but this might be one of the "stoppers", the Bank breaker, so to speak, to pay for the printing of the required number of Election Communications. The other "stopper" might be that I'm in the US, albeit I'm due to fly back soon, temporarily or otherwise.
*Useful Electoral/Candidate Rules links:
***
This example "Election Communication" fits on one sheet, double-sided (note the page numbering - if you print one slide, then the other on the reverse of the same sheet then fold it down the middle to make a "leaflet", you'll get the idea - care though, it works on US paper size, which is NOT A4, you might have to fiddle a bit). I don't suggest it's in a form or contains content that are ideal. It's a manifestation of my feelings about the whole mess; as said above, I ran out of space for the suggested variances by Constituency - such as candidate bio. and photo. Being a Powerpoint file, you can cut and paste blocks of text/graphics you like, re-size etc; and ignore others.
Royal Mail's limit of 60 grams will allow for a minimum of at least one more sheet (depending on paper weight); so a 2nd sheet could be inserted possibly devoted to local and national issues, and general non-Iraq issues. This could also be the place for the (non sleeper) candidate's photo and bio - who would preferably be familiar with his/her Constituency's problems and issue - oh, and preferably NOT leaning Tory.
Whatever. I don't mean to sound as though I'm trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs (whatever the hell that ever meant ;-).
Dennis Revell
e-mail:
dennisrevell@att.net
Homepage:
http://dennisrevell.home.att.net/Politico/TITLE_ONLY_Open_letter_to_Prime_Minister_Tony_BlairTXT.htm