A Manifesto for Peace & Progress:
End the Occupation
Published: Thursday 2nd October 2003
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For the sake of the people of Iraq, whose unnamed and uncounted victims are murdered every day of this occupation -

For the children of Iraq, whose right to life, and such necessities as light and clean water have been stolen from them -

For the sake of the Palestinian people who were promised a roadmap to peace and have been given in its place a wall of steel, stealing thousands of acres of Palestinian land, poverty upon poverty, humiliation upon humiliation -

For the sake of the people of Chechnya, Burma and Kashmir whose cries and sufferings are ignored and whose oppression goes unchecked by any voice of international law -

For international law itself and all its conventions which have been trampled upon by the illegal war and occupation of Iraq -

For the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, who are the suffering embodiments of the abuse of human rights which America and Britain practice and promote by their war -

- we must end this Occupation!

But to end this occupation we must put an end to the government of Tony Blair.

Britain today is as much the key to the international situation as it was at the beginning of this war. Without Britain in this war the Bush administration would have faced a far sterner test from the opposition at home. Without Britain as partner in the occupying authority, that opposition, not least amongst the relatives of US soldiers and the soldiers themselves, would soon overwhelm the cuckoo in the White House, whose brittle popularity has already begun to crack.

If British forces are brought home today, the token forces from Poland, Denmark etc., will come home tomorrow, and will speed the moment when US forces will be brought home by the American people.

But to bring home British forces means to bring down this government by every political and industrial means at our disposal. It is not anywhere near enough to call only for the removal of the Prime Minister. Every other contender for his post within this government has voted for this war and this occupation, and stakes their future on its continuation.

With our demand to end the occupation we must force this government out of office. Let the shape and colour of the next government be what it will. We will have no government that continues this occupation. We will have a government of peace and progress.

27 September 2003