What will Donald Trump’s election in the US mean for war and peace? What is behind israel’s genocide in Gaza? And why does the media not tell the truth about wars and militarism? These are just some of the questions the Stop the War Coalition will be discussing at our Anti-War Convention on Sunday (17 November) as we work to deepen and strengthen our movement.
From the Middle East to Eastern Europe, we face permanent war. Great power conflict looms, risking global conflagration. The convention will bring together leading campaigners, commentators, experts, activists and trade unionists to assess the situation in the Middle East, Ukraine and the Asia Pacific and to discuss how to strengthen the resistance.
Speakers include the poet and presenter Michael Rosen, the British-Palestinian plastic surgeon and Rector of the University of Glasgow Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the PCS trade union, the journalist Peter Oborne, Jeremy Corbyn MP and holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos.
We will also hear from Stop the War convenor Lindsey German, TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust, journalist and activist Taj Ali, barrister Michael Mansfield, CND general secretary Sophie Bolt, SOAS Palestine society president Haya Adam, Mohammed Kozbar of the Finsbury Park Mosque and Declassified co-founder Matt Kennard.
Other sessions include Imperialism, Islamophobia and the Far Right, Sudan and the crisis in Africa, and the policing and politics of protest.
Trump’s decisive victory in the US presidential election has undoubtedly put him in a strong position and poses new challenges for the anti-war movement in Britain and internationally. The timing of our convention could not be more critical.
Trump won for a range of reasons, perhaps most importantly economic discontent. But his victory also owes much to the refusal of traditionally Democrat voters to endorse Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and for extending the war on the Palestinians to Lebanon.
Clearly a Harris victory would not have stopped Israel’s drive to war across the Middle East. But Trump’s close relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and his policies in the region could well enable it to pursue its ambitions, including full control of Gaza and the West Bank.
There has already been some discussion in some left and anti-war groups that appears to be taking heart from Trump’s ‘America First’ rhetoric about stopping wars. But no one should. He is a racist and Islamophobe, who engaged in warmongering in his previous term. His record speaks for itself. Far from delivering peace, he doubled down on US wars and proxy wars, in Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
He also ordered new nuclear missiles, ripped up nuclear treaties and demanded increased NATO military spending. America First does not mean an end to US imperialism abroad, but an advancement of its corporate interests, including militarily.
And when he talks of bringing peace to Ukraine, which he may be able to do if he can get support for halting military and economic aid, it will likely be to focus on his commitment to an increasingly hot war with China.
He has also demanded that Nato allies increase their defence spending at the expense of funding areas such as health or education. Our government already spends billions on weapons and war while poverty spreads and services crumble at home.
Stop the War’s deputy president Andrew Murray wrote of Trump’s return that in Britain the critical issue remains disengaging from the US war chariot. Starmer, he said, is entirely committed to the war alliance with the US and will seek to influence Trump to maintain the Ukraine conflict, even though both the UK and US election results demonstrate that “liberal” imperialism and endless war are not vote-winners.
With that objective in mind, we urge everyone who opposes war to join us on 17 November and to organise delegations from local anti-war groups, trade union branches, universities, churches, mosques and elsewhere.
We face an extremely dangerous situation worldwide, with a growing arms race. We in the anti-war movement must redouble our efforts to end the genocide and wars in the Middle East. We also need the west to stop arming Ukraine if there is to be any chance of peace there, and for an end to the escalation of militarism and conflict aimed at China in the Pacific.
Anti-War Convention: Stop the Drive to War! Sunday 17 November, 12 to 5pm, The Atrium, London, E2 6EJ
Buy tickets here
