Jane Ashworth (letters, Solidarity 3/59) complains about my comment on the “tilt... towards pro-war and pro-occupation elements in the labour movement” of the new and still somewhat mysterious “Labour Friends of Iraq” group.
But check out its website. A speech by Jack Straw gets pride of place.
Also proudly boosted there is the National Executive statement which Blair pushed through Labour Party conference. At and after the conference, trade-union leaders clutching at straws were claiming that Blair committed himself to a definite and progressive policy for withdrawing troops from Iraq. What do they make of that now that Jack Straw — yes, the same Jack Straw — has endorsed sending British troops to the area round Baghdad so to help the USA make another assault on Fallujah of the type they made in April? And to add another turn to the spiral of brutal, militaristic US arrogance which is turning Iraq into a chaos where only gangsters and sectarian militias can thrive?
Tilt was too mild a word. By all accounts the LFIQ people at Labour Party conference busied themselves there mainly with helping Blair escape embarrassment.
We agree with LFIQ that the “resistance” militias are reactionary. But they cannot be properly fought by backing Blair (which means backing Bush).
A “solidarity” campaign which crawls so far and so fast up Blair’s arse will not deliver much solidarity.
Colin Foster, London
