Whilst Labour’s leadership continues to champion militarism, its members and affiliated trade unionists voted to end the genocide in Gaza.
Monday at Labour Party Conference saw government ministers lean heavily on war rhetoric and promises of economic growth, as the government attempted to justify obscene levels of military spending going into the Autumn Budget.
This morning in the Britain Reconnected session, speeches from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Defence Secretary John Healey were followed by the emergency motions debate on Peace in the Middle East – which came after over 30 ordinary motions on Palestine had been blocked from being discussed.
In her speech, Cooper called for NATO member states to “confront planes” that entered NATO airspace without permission. Her statement follows comments by Donald Trump last week in support of NATO jets shooting down Russian planes. Despite reservations from NATO’s chair of the military committee, Britain continues to push for a more aggression stance, with John Healey saying that a “drone wall” of British-made drones would be deployed on NATO’s eastern borders to shoot down Russian drones that flew into its territory. Launched as “Project Octopus” at the DSEI arms fair earlier this month, the plan is part of the government’s efforts to use a war economy to boost jobs in Britain. Little detail is known about how long the infrastructure for this project will take to come online.
Healey’s own speech started almost as an interruption to the emergency motions debate on Palestine. Motion 1 sought to confirm the government’s position that fails to recognise the UN Commission of Inquiry’s findings that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Motion 2, proposed by Unison and seconded by ASLEF, accepted these findings and calls on the government to take urgent action to stop the genocide, including a full arms embargo on Israel.
Despite the Party’s manoeuvring by not allowing any speeches from conference floor in favour of Motion 2, Motion 1 fell. Motion 2 passed due to the firm support of affiliates and trade unions. This means that the Labour Party now has policy that directly opposes the Labour government’s complicity in genocide. The political pressure is intensifying on the government to end its arms sales to Israel.
Healey spoke about the “historic investment” in arms and that a “defence dividend” was coming for Britain. Much was made about arms manufacturing in communities like Barrow, Devonport and Glasgow. Yet all evidence points to strong links between communities whose economies are dominated by arms companies and social deprivation. Whilst ‘Team Barrow’ is promoted as a role model for the ‘defence dividend’, the town remains one of the most deprived in the country, despite being a hub of the nuclear industry for decades.
At CND’s successful fringe meeting ‘British nuclear expansion – who pays the price?’ speakers including Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, Asad Rehman, CEO of Friends of the Earth, and John Foster, advisor to the Alternative Defence Review, outlined the interconnected crises of the rising threat of nuclear war, climate breakdown and global poverty. A lively debate concluded that the same solutions can solve them: prioritising climate action, poverty eradication and rebuilding our public services.
CND’s digital billboard calling for Starmer to invest in communities not nuclear weapons has been a great success, with a really high profile across Liverpool city and attracting lots of interest around Labour Party conference. It also featured on the BBC and Sky News!