Blair trial sparks unrest
Protesters met at Greys Monument last Friday to show their outrage at Tony Blair’s involvement in Iraq.
The protest was held the same day that Blair appeared in front of Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry, where he defended his decision to invade Iraq.
Public speakers from the Tyneside Stop the War Coalition raised awareness about many of Blair’s past political actions involving the Middle East.
Protesters waved signs stating slogans like “Blair Lied One Million Died” and “Tony We Don’t Believe You”.
A large crowd were gathered around the speakers. Many were in fancy dress with one protester holding a wad of cash and wearing a comical rubber Blair mask. The event was pretty entertaining as well as having an important reason behind it.
After all, for some this inquiry is a cause for celebration, although its introduction has left many wanting to say “I told you so”.
Despite claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, a massive section of the British public opposed the war when it began in 2003, as it wasn’t supported by the UN.
Public opinion became more widely opposed when no weapons were found.
For some people then, the introduction of this inquiry only confirms their long held beliefs that Blair’s invasion was questionable from the very start.
The testimony given to Chilcot’s inquiry in the past few weeks seems to support this.
On the 26th of January two former foreign office legal advisers said they believed the invasion was illegal because it had no UN backing.
The following day Lord Goldsmith admitted that after meeting with some US diplomats in 2003 he’d changed his mind that an invasion would be illegal.
He has denied that this was due to any political pressure.
However some protesters were also sceptical about the usefulness of the inquiry.
“Of course I don’t know if it was all Blair who did it” one protester told The Grey Matter.
“I’d like to see the people on trail who were really in charge”.
“The inquiries just a way for the elite to whitewash the discomfort that the war caused” another protester commented.
It seems like it could take much more than a guilty verdict to appease that section of the public who think our countries involvement in Iraq is nothing short of criminal.
BNP- Now Durham’s at it
Following the news that the BNP will be allowed to campaign at Newcastle University, Durham University debating society have decided to grab themselves some career enhancing attention (we assume) by inviting Andrew Brons and Chris Beverly to a debate on Friday 12th February.
According to the facebook group set up to oppose this:
Andrew Brons was a member of the National Socialist Movement, a group which was deliberately founded on the date of Hitler’s birthday and which was also responsible for a number of arson attacks on synagogues in the 60s. Brons later became the chairman of the National Front between 1980 and 1984 and co-edited their journal New Nation. Since he has joined the British National Party and was elected in the Euro election in 2009 for Leeds and Humberside.
Chris Beverley is a Leeds councillor for the BNP and is their main liaison with German nazi National Democratic Party, along with other Nazi BNP members he attended a gathering of the European National Front in 2007.
UPDATE: The debate has been called off due to public pressure.
BNP allowed to campaign at Newcastle University
As The BNP are granted permission to campaign on Newcastle University’s campus, a student reacts:
Shortly before Newcastle University broke up for the Christmas holidays, the student council voted to allow the British National Party a politically active presence on campus. This means the BNP are permitted to form a university society and to distribute propaganda around the student union.
The argument used to oppose the ‘no platform’ policy typically resorted to the current fall-back phrase: ‘freedom of speech’. As the BNP have recently gained more electoral support, so they have attracted more media coverage, and ‘freedom of speech’ has consistently been applied to excuse all such attention. However, this country has laws against racism and against hate speech. A racist party like the BNP should not be given the opportunity to mobilize and recruit, and to propagate its poisonous rhetoric around what is supposed to be an institution of education and enlightenment.
One member of the student council present at this meeting justified the decision by saying: ‘there are other bodies of students who could be viewed as having strange views – there is no true definition of fascists’. The frailty of this argument is self-evident. Of course anyone could be viewed by another as having strange views, but how many of those views are aggressively prejudiced against minorities and violent in practise? Racism certainly has a true definition, as does homophobia. Furthermore, I think the majority of people would recognise the comments made by the BNP’s founder John Tyndall who stated that his goal was to “create a Nazi dictatorship in Great Britain, as well as a country free of all non whites” as inherently fascist.
A large proportion of students at Newcastle are international students, or are ‘non-white’ British students, or gay students, and it is these who will feel most acutely the intimidation of a BNP presence. The student union’s first priority should be the welfare of the student body, but this priority seems to be slipping on their agenda as they hasten to accommodate Nazi sympathisers. Just as we have increasingly witnessed on a national scale, the BNP is gradually acquiring the false veneer of respectability it craves. The only way to deal with fascists is to expose them, and to resist.
Please sign the petition to keep the BNP out of our university.
UPDATE: Maurice Cousins poses a counter argument on ‘Nothing British about the BNP’
Rent A’Sunderland
Members of three refugee support groups joined forces on Friday (15th) to demonstrate outside government offices in Newcastle. They were protesting the deportation of Cameroonian Bermine Lili and her son Kieron. Lili was sold into prostitution after being duped into leaving Cameroon. Her family has threatened to kill her if she returns to Cameroon due to the ‘shame’ of being a trafficked woman.
Since fleeing her captors in France she has tried to build a life in Sunderland, but has been constantly threatened with deportation. Despite having been given an expulsion date of last Monday (18th), nobody came for the family, leaving mother and son living on a knife edge. They have now been given a new date of Monday 25th. There will be another protest this Friday (22nd), outside the Government Offices North East, from 2pm.
To get involved email TCAR (Tyneside Community Action for Refugees) on tynesidecarn@yahoo.co.uk
This article has been lovingly knicked from SchNEWS.
Newcastle Lib Dem steps down after offensive blog comments
Greg Stone, the Lib Dem candidate for Newcastle East has stepped out of the running after he made offensive comments about other politicians on the Guido Fawkes blog. He made the comments under a pseudonym but was later found out.
No doubt the Labour and Conservative parties in Newcastle will make a big deal out of this in the run up to the General Election. They need to make as much noise as they can about this sort of thing, because yesterday Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg did away with trivial things such as commintments to free care for over 65 year olds, free child care and scrapping tuition fees for students, ensuring that there is very little real difference between Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems except for the colour on their lapels.
Clegg justified scrapping these pledges by arguing that ‘the country can’t afford it’. Clearly the people who won’t be able to afford these cuts aren’t part of ‘the county’.
Slippery roads
Finding the roads a little slippery with all this snow? Apparently North Tyneside Council took a gamble that it would be a warm winter and sold its road salt to countries where a snowy winter is garunteed. Pressumably they’ll have to buy some more at a higher price now.
*Update*: The Grey Matter learns that supplies will last until Monday
Short break
After a short break The Grey Matter will return with a new edition in Febuary. The events listings will be kept up to date and any breaking news will still be put on the blog.
The Wave
With climate change talks in Copenhagen get under way, Newcastle student Beth Staunton gives an account of the Wave protest in London:
Last Saturday saw thousands of protesters march up to Westminster to voice their demands for the Copenhagen Climate talks. This was The Wave protest that was organised by Stop Climate Change Coalition in the run-up to the summit.
Among its demands for 2010 were 10% emission cuts, a million green jobs, and a ban on domestic flights. The march, starting at Grosvenor Square, culminated at the Houses of Parliament with a giant ‘wave’ by masses of people dressed (or painted in) blue. Police originally put the numbers at 20,000, while Stop Climate Change Coalition stated a higher figure of 50,000 which has not been contradicted. Several coaches travelled down from Newcastle, with at least one taking a number of students.
The march was definitely a colourful one (primarily blue) and several groups took up such chants as “What do we want? Climate jobs!” and “Copenhagen’s no solution, what we need is Revolution!”
With the official aim of the Copenhagen talks being, at best, a 20% cut in emissions by 2020, which would be only 2% in cuts per year, it’s now more important than ever that the people have a voice in these issues. Twenty-four Wave supporters were invited in to 10 Downing Street to voice their demands to Gordon Brown. Whether he has really taken them on board is extremely doubtful, but hopefully he, among all the other world leaders, feels the pressure.
Metro sold off
The Metro system was today privatised and local democracy has been completely ignored. Deutsche-Bahn won the bid to run the Metro system.
Nae tae Nato!
Jonny Pickering reports on anti-war action north of the border:
With opposition to the war in Afghanistan growing and anger at the replacement of Trident once more becoming an issue, as we continue to see massive cuts in public services, hundreds of people converged in Edinburgh on Saturday 14th November to say no to NATO.
Stop the War Scotland organised a demonstration to coincide with a NATO defence ministers meeting in the city, which was backed by the Scottish Afghan Society, Scottish CND, British CND and UK Stop the War Coalition. Protesters were angry at the ongoing war in Afghanistan, the rising death toll and NATOs continuing imperialist presence there. The number now stands at 98 British troops who have lost their lives and countless numbers of innocent civilians who have been killed by occupying NATO forces. Opposition to the war on Afghanistan is growing not just due to the ever-rising number of deaths and the knowledge that it is unwinnable; it is the growing realisation of the imperialist nature of the war and that far from making Britain safer, it is breeding resentment among the Afghan population, who are driven to take up arms in resistance to an occupying foreign power.
Demonstrators were also voicing their opposition to the replacement of Trident nuclear weapons, which form part of NATOs nuclear arsenal. The British government is continuing with its replacement of Trident despite continued opposition and the exposure that it will now cost as much as £130 billion. All this as we see massive cuts to our NHS, postal service, schools and universities and at the same time as Gordon Brown is sending 500 more troops to fight in a war that is costing countless more billions of pounds (not to mention human lives). Protesters demanded that this money be put to better use funding our vital public services; they marched through the streets of Edinburgh chanting “They say warfare, we say welfare!” and “No to NATO, no to Trident!”
We are constantly told that in this recession, we are all in it together and must accept cuts in all walks of life. Yet if there are billions of pounds available to spend on war, nuclear weapons and bailing out the banks, surely there is money available to help the ordinary people who are not responsible for the financial crisis.
For more on this protest see indy media and SchNEWS
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