We Need an Anti-war Island and an Anti-war Government

~ by Ken Knapman

The refugee crisis has opened up the debate as to the value of conflict and the result of war as a means of resolving international problems.

The country is obviously Syria. Cameron has indicated that he would like to step up the bombing and military intervention as a “solution”. This feint was a crude tactical attempt to shift attention away from responsibility to the humanitarian crisis. His Government would also like to step up intervention by using the crisis as an excuse.

Many would oppose such a move.

What is happening, on the contrary, is the isolation of the Government and has opened up the space for opposition to war and proxies. Yet at the same time it disrupts and could injure this neo-liberal Government.

Fairly soon there is to be an EU referendum and the two-faced nature of Merkel will be at the centre of attention who was at the forefront of pro-NATO warmongering in the Ukraine, at the same time, prepared to make “humanitarian” song and dance over the consequences of interventionism.

We cannot forget France’s eagerness in Gadaffi’s Libya also.

There is indeed an opportunity to make it difficult for ‘absolute’ Government to easily to go to war under any circumstance. Blair almost got away without having a parliamentary vote on Iraq but manipulated consensus instead in the end. There must be constitutional change to ensure that no Prime Minister or Cabinet can go to war. The Corbynists could well be in the forefront of this demand.

There is also a tradition on the Isle of Wight to be anti-war and a constituency like ours could have an enormous effect if it declared itself.