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Labour must find its voice on peace Andrew Murray
MAY DAY 2022 is being celebrated while peace in Europe is more precarious than for many years. Ukraine is being laid waste by an unjustifiable Russian invasion, with thousands of civilian deaths, millions of refugees and great material destruction.
The war has escalated international tension, with vast increases in military spending in prospect, and the deployment of NATO troops eastwards.The world is divided, with Europe following the USA in imposing punitive sanctions on Russia, while China, India and much of Africa and the Middle East remain neutral.
This dangerous situation demands a clear labour movement response. It is right to condemn Russia’s aggression, but that alone is not sufficient. The present crisis reflects the missed opportunity of the end of the Cold War, when NATO should have been dissolved along with the Warsaw Pact.
Instead, NATO has been deployed in one war after another – Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya – and expanded up to the Russian border, in breach of promises given at the end of the Cold War. The US, with British support, has preferred to pursue hegemony instead of peace.
And it is hard for Western governments to criticise Putin for breaking international law in Ukraine when they have the stain of the illegal and disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq on their record.
Labour should not stay silent on the crisis, nor limit itself to parroting the government’s approach.The message of May Day has always been that the cause of labour is the cause of peace.
Labour should stand for the solidarity of workers in Ukraine and Russia against war, and for the solidarity of trade unionists and socialists in Britain with both. It should back brave anti-war protesters in Russia against Putin’s regime, and also condemn the Ukrainian government’s crackdown on left-wing voices and political parties.
It should oppose the expansionist policies of NATO, as well as the Russian invasion. A new security plan for Europe, not old divisions, is needed.
Labour should oppose a new arms race in Europe and prioritise tackling the cost-of-living crisis instead.
It should demand a warm welcome for refugees fleeing war, whether it be in Ukraine, Syria, Libya or Afghanistan.
It should urge the British government to play a supportive role in relation to negotiations to end the conflict, rather than trying to prolong the war for their own selfish reasons. Labour must find its voice, lest this conflict simply be the precursor to further and larger great-power conflicts
across the world.
