Michael White and Sarah Hall Friday October 1, 2004 The Guardian
Leaders of the "Big Four" trade unions joined forces with constituency activists to save Tony Blair from fresh embarrassment over Iraq on the closing day of the Labour conference in Brighton yesterday.
The emergency debate on the war and Britain's deeply divided attitude towards it, which overshadowed much of the week, culminated in an impassioned debate - notably free of the kind of personal recrimination or rancour which used to galvanise such feuds.
However, delegates did revert to past traditions when the vote came. After arm-twisting, the leaders of the TGWU, GMB, Unison and Amicus -- left-leaning Blair critics who command 40% of the conference votes between them -- rallied to protect the prime minister from calls to set a date for the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq. With the bulk of constituency delegates -- many of them opponents of the war -- also persuaded, the vote to defeat the hardline anti-war resolution was a thumping 86% to 14%.
Instead, the conference endorsed a national executive committee (NEC) statement, recognising that British forces will stay as long as the Iraqi government wants them there to help UN-backed efforts to build "a federal, democratic, pluralist and unified Iraq".
Mr Blair, who paid a 30-minute visit to the Amicus delegation's hotel to plead for unity, was present for much of the debate and yesterday's closing rituals. He was roped in to help a steelworkers' choir to sing Jerusalem, which followed the Red Flag. . . .
During the debate, an Iraqi exile who saw her family and friends perish at the hands of Saddam Hussein begged Britain not to desert Iraq.
Shanaz Rashid, the wife of a member of the interim Iraqi government and member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, received a standing ovation after saying that Iraqis could not understand criticism of Mr Blair, a prime minister with "courage in understanding our pain and agony".
She pleaded with Labour members: "Please don't desert us in our hour of need. Don't let the men of violence use terror to deny the Iraqi people their freedom."
The mother-of-two, who fled Baghdad at the age of 18 and now lives in Surrey, said: "Some of you may feel you can attack your leader over Iraq, but it is Mr Blair who has stood up to Saddam and freed my people, who for the past 35 years have suffered destruction, humiliation, chemical weapons attacks, poverty, torture and rape.
"Yes, there have been difficulties. Yes, there have been mistakes; perhaps many mistakes. No, you did not find weapons of mass destruction. But for the great majority of Iraqis, WMD was never the issue. We don't understand the criticism of your prime minister. All we wanted was to be free; free - just free".
Shahid Malik, an NEC member who had opposed the war, moved the executive's statement, saying the Iraqi people would not forgive Britain if troops were pulled out. The west had long turned a blind eye to Saddam's atrocities, but this was "precisely why we now have a profound moral responsibility to right the wrongs of Iraq". He added: "It was wrong to go to war but it would be equally wrong to abandon the Iraqi people when their country needs us most."
Clair Wilcox, from Streatham constituency Labour party (CLP), withdrawing her motion among suspicions she had been leant on, called for unity. "We have to move forward together: conference, party and government. It shouldn't be this conference that sets a timetable for withdrawal. We want the Iraqi people to set the agenda."
But Pat Healey, from Regents Park and Kensington CLP, refused to withdraw the motion calling for a date for troop withdrawal because the situation in Iraq was worsening. A "proper exit strategy" was required that would be "moderate, desirable, right and electorally popular".
She added: "Some argue that withdrawal will lead to a bloodbath. But the bloodbath is already happening. . . . It is unfortunate but a fact that British forces are now part of the problem -- not the solution."
Matt Keeler, a Romford delegate who opposed the war, argued the situation in Iraq was now improving and "the immediate withdrawal of troops in Iraq would be a criminal betrayal of the responsibility we owe to the Iraqi people".
Alice Mahon, MP for Halifax and a trenchant war critic, said delegates were "living in a bubble" if they believed the security situation was improving on the ground.
"The rest of the country can see that. It is in front of them on their television screens every day. We saw it when the two-year-old child was dragged from the rubble of a US bombing in Falluja last week. We see it in the desperate, desperate face of Ken Bigley as he sits alone in that terrible cage. This gap between what the government is claiming and the reality on the ground in Iraq is what is fuelling the credibility gap that the prime minister has with the electorate."
<http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2004/story/0,14991,1317333,00.html> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>