The traditional Christmas message of peace on Earth is unlikely to be heeded by the British government and its allies in the coming year.
If the declarations of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Foreign Secretary David Lammy are anything to go by, then we will see continued warmongering, increases in arms spending and a militant form of militarism which regards calls for peace as akin to treachery.
Anyone who expected a reprieve from the belligerence of 14 years of Tory rule will have been disappointed, not least in foreign policy. Starmer’s record on Gaza was appalling in opposition, losing Labour many thousands of votes as he continued to pronounce that Israel had the right to defend itself. In government, he has expressed repeated support for a government which is a pariah across the world.
Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu has been responsible for genocide in Gaza, has a warrant out for his arrest as a war criminal, has been excoriated in a recent report by Amnesty International, and is carrying out ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem. Deaths stand at over 45,000, and that is a conservative estimate.
A recent Airwars report demonstrates the unique intensity of Israel’s genocidal bombing of Gaza in its early months. After 15 months of acting with complete impunity, Israel has now invaded Syria and is bombing repeatedly, as it has done with Lebanon.
None of this receives more than the mildest rebuke from the Labour government, which refuses to stop arming Israel or put any sort of sanction on its war criminals and their allies. Instead, Starmer speaks at Labour Friends of Israel events and does nothing to condemn the supporters of Israel who attack anyone who shows solidarity with the Palestinians.
On Ukraine, Starmer has been one of the most belligerent in sending arms and insisting that he will stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes.”
He has been urging the use of British-made Storm Shadow missiles on Russian territory for months — and this is now happening, as is the use of US-made ATACMS missiles against Russia. These amount to direct interventions by nuclear-armed powers against another nuclear power, thus increasing the risk of nuclear war.
In the past three years, Britain has sent increasing levels of weaponry and equipment to Ukraine, underlining how much this is a proxy war between Nato and Russia.
Over that time, millions have become refugees, hundreds of thousands have died, many more have serious injuries, and there has been a terrible cost in human lives, environmental destruction and threats to mental and physical health.
Ukraine is losing this bloody war of attrition. Levels of desertion from the Ukrainian army have risen sharply. There is growing opposition to the war itself and to the extension of conscription.
It is widely accepted that there will be some sort of peace negotiations next year — even Ukrainian President Zelensky has admitted this — yet in the meantime, the main European powers and the US urge the continuation of a war which has no winners.
Meanwhile, the cold war with China is turning hot, with growing levels of armament by Western allies in the Pacific, threats of sanctions and high-profile spy scandals.
All this takes place against a terrifying level of arms spending internationally, which now stands at the incredible figure of $2.4 trillion a year. Starmer is committed to increasing British “defence” spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP a year at a time when his government attacks the Waspi women and pensioners’ fuel allowance.
The Nato powers are planning to demand this increase to 3 per cent of GDP — and we can be sure that Starmer will be among the most enthusiastic for it.
These shocking developments from a Labour government are creating wide opposition, which needs to grow in the new year. The anti-war and peace movement in Britain has to build on its mass mobilisations around Palestine solidarity to create wide opposition to war, whether in the Pacific, eastern Europe or the Middle East.
We should also oppose the imperialist system that leads to these wars and helps to sustain them against the best interests of the people of the world. Our opposition to the “war on terror” in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria has been proved right by events: rather than peace and stability resulting from these interventions, we have seen worsening conditions, the creation of failed states, and an increase in the terrorism which was supposed to be eradicated.
We should be proud of what we have achieved with the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, despite the best efforts of most politicians and the media to stop us. But it is clear that 2025 is going to be very dangerous and unstable.
Even if there are peace settlements in Ukraine and Gaza, they will be fragile and volatile. They will involve very high levels of troops and weaponry protecting buffer zones and borders. And they will lead to further conflicts unless the movement internationally grows strong enough to defeat them.
That will depend not on governments but on the working people of the world recognising that war is not in their interests and organising to stop it.
Source: Morning Star