Economists estimate extreme poverty could be drastically reduced for a fraction of global defence spending, yet military budgets continue to expand year on year, says JON TRICKETT MP, ahead of the Stop the War International Conference on Saturday
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Not all veterans are equal on Armed Forces Day
War cannot be sustained if people are reminded that a career in the military involves killing and being killed
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Trade unions, trades councils and community organisations must work together to build lasting solidarity and resistance to the far right, argues DREW GILCHRIST
Recent violence in Belfast was not spontaneous — it was built on years of failure and political neglect, argues STIOFAN O NUALLAIN
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On Armed Forces Day last Saturday a group of men handing out leaflets in Blackpool was ordered by a private security firm’s employees to stop what they were doing immediately and leave the promenade.
What on earth was on those leaflets? Something highly offensive, surely, to have forced the authorities into such dramatic action to prevent the public seeing it? Well, yes, if you consider the promotion of peace to be offensive.
Because this particular group of men belong to an organisation called Veterans For Peace UK and as the name suggests they have all served in Her Majesty’s armed forces. Yet they were ‘escorted’ from a public space on Armed Forces Day by corporate security staff working on behalf of Blackpool Council. They were even told that they could not return to the promenade if they were wearing their group’s t-shirt. VFP UK’s t-shirts carry the words: ‘War is not the solution to the problems we face in the 21st century’. Highly offensive sentiments that should never be aired in public I’m sure you’d agree; especially when there are impressionable children about.
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