.......When the numbers are only going in one direction - down - then I think we can start to see a pattern emerging. They call it the 'it's all over' pattern, and it would be sheer stupidity not to recognise that.
Where are all the articles from "the pro war left", as lenin calls them, condemning the protests? Not even the Telegraph can muster anything, so unthreatened do they feel by Saturday's events. Face it - it was a memorial.
I suspect that some of the passions raised over Iraq are begining to fade now as many of those who were opposed to an 'adventure' now see the case for at least doing a proper job of the hand over power in Iraq. The polls still show 40+% opposed the war but what percentage of them support the Stoppers demands for troops out? Not many I would guess and even fewer would be comfortable with the support the 'resistance' line heard from some leading figures in the movement.
Also the wave of terrorism may have led some to realise that perhaps Bush and Blair aren't the biggest threats to the world and in the light of Madrid they might feel a little silly marching with people whose placards declare "George Bush - World's Number One Terrorist".
Yet at one stage the Stop the War Coalition put a million or so people on the streets of supposedly apathetic London. Regardless of what one's position on the war was that was a significant moment.
While a decline in numbers was perhaps inevitable once war began it takes particularly inept political leaders to lose the support of almost everyone they won over a year ago.
The problem was that Stop the War never really believed they could stop the war. Led by activists who have decades of involvement in the 'gesture before defeat' politics of the British left they were incapable of seizing the moment - the idea of actually winning the fight never even entered their heads.
Faced with the potential threat of direct action and continuous protests from a million strong movement how the nervous powers must have laughed with relief when the organisers announced that their next event would be on the evening after war began. It was like Scargill telling the Miners to carry on working but to protest 'on the day your pit is closed'.
And these people actually call themselves 'revolutionaries'.......
That moment, predictable though it was, marked the end of any prospect of the British anti-war movement taking on any import beyond being an outlet for frustrated Guardian readers.
>From then on the Stoppers returned to the tired rituals of the Britleft - a social club for a certain section of the middle class with their poetry readings and musical events. A badge to wear, a tee-shirt to buy and a bit of battleground for sectarians of various utterly pointless coteries.
It ended in the comedy of the Britleft's other great delusion - the belief that they can be an electoral force, that a party led by George Galloway and run by the SWP is a serious alternative to the Labour Party. The problem the Stoppers will face in June is that, unlike with demos, there can be no argument over the numbers when it comes to votes. Posted by Harry at 11:42 AM Trots | Comments (20) | TrackBack (0)
Michael Pugliese