“Opposition to growing militarisation and the consequent attack on workers’ living standards is growing.”
Daniel Kebede spoke at Stop the War’s recent International Anti-War Conference. You can read his speech below.
Comrades,
It is wonderful to be here at this historic conference, where thousands of us have come together from across Europe to demand Peace for people everywhere.
We are standing at the edge of an abyss. Global conflict is at its highest level since the Second World War.
And the mad man in the White House wants even more wars – threatening further conflict in Latin America, especially against Cuba, and even seeking to annex Greenland!
We cannot rely on our politicians to create and sustain the conditions for peace.
That responsibility rests with us; without the voices and actions of ordinary working-class people, the peace we all want will so easily be drowned out by the drumbeats of war.
Funded by cuts to welfare, public services, and overseas aid, global military spending surged to a record $2.9 trillion in 2025, the eleventh consecutive year of growth.
Redirecting just a fraction of that spending could address critical development challenges.
For example, a single stealth fighter could fund a year of education for 200,000 children.
Our governments have the wrong priorities. We want Welfare Not Warfare… We demand Books, Not Bombs.
Every war is a war on children.
Almost four and a half years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, children, families and educators continue to face the devastating consequences. Hundreds of Ukrainian children have been killed, thousands injured, and millions displaced. More than 1,700 schools have been damaged or destroyed, and 4.6 million children are struggling to access education, forced to learn online in underground stations and basements.
Despite these challenges, educators and unions continue working to keep education alive.
The NEU stands in solidarity with the Trade Union of Science and Education Workers of Ukraine and with the Ukrainian people. This war must end!
And it’s not just Ukraine.
Earlier this week, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack released a report documenting attacks on education last year.
Its findings are a stain on our collective conscience:
- More than 8,500 attacks on education were recorded – the highest ever level.
- 2,400 attacks against students and teachers were recorded in Palestine – a scholasticate in Gaza, schools demolished and attacked in the West Bank.
- Swathes of schools destroyed across Southern Lebanon, and over half a million school-aged children displaced since March.
- 150 civilians killed in the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran.
- Students and educators abducted in Nigeria, Sudan, Congo.
- Teachers killed in Colombia – the most dangerous country to be a teacher trade unionist.
As arms manufacturers enrich themselves, it is those least responsible who bear the costs of war.
Last year, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK’s aid budget would be cut by 40% to fund a corresponding increase in defence spending. Now the Government is considering further cuts to aid as it seeks to increase military spending yet again.
The people in countries most affected by war are being forced to pay for those same wars and the weapons that rain down on their schools, homes and hospitals – through cuts to education and health.
And in our own countries, when funding for welfare, education, healthcare, homes, and other public services is cut to pay for increased military spending, it is working people, especially the most marginalised, who pay the highest price.
And what of those who stand up to protest against these wars and atrocities around the world?
We have seen a growth in the global Palestine solidarity movement – but it has been met with brutality, oppression and criminalisation.
We all witnessed the brutality meted out by the IDF against the global Sumud flotilla participants, whose only crime was to seek to take aid to Gaza.
And while Britain continues to sell arms to Israel, it too is criminalising those who protest against the genocide.
Our good comrades Ben Jamal and Chris Nineham, two highly respected civil society leaders, are now appealing their convictions following the peaceful Palestine solidarity event in January 2025. As Human Rights Watch and other rights organisations have noted: “[These] convictions are a testament to how far this country has swung towards adopting authoritarian approaches to protest”
This week, the UK Court of Appeal overturned a High Court ruling that had found the government’s proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act to be unlawful. This decision, described by Amnesty as ‘a shameful chapter in our history’, will only further inhibit the right to protest.
So, colleagues, we have a huge task before us.
Working for peace means pushing against the tide, and it is not for the fainthearted.
But this conference, and the one in Paris before it, have shown that together we are more than the sum of our parts.
Across Europe, opposition to growing militarisation and the consequent attack on workers’ living standards is growing.
Together we can win the peace, through international solidarity we will prevail.
Solidarity! We demand Peace! Welfare not Warfare! Books not Bombs!
- Daniel Kebede is the General Secretary of the National Education Union (NEU).
- You can follow Daniel on Twitter/X, on Bluesky; and follow the NEU on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
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