“The political class have got it wrong time after time, but the people in the UK and around the world have been proved right to oppose war and to stand in solidarity with those under attack.”
Fran Heathcote spoke at Stop the War’s recent International Anti-War Conference. You can read her speech below.
Thank you for inviting me here today. The aims of the trade union movement, which represents the interests of working-class people, and the aims of the anti-war movement are indivisible.
Last year, I attended the International Conference Against War in Paris at an arena filled with thousands of people from across Europe, committed to building a more peaceful world.
Earlier this week, I was in Dublin as part of a conference bringing together 28 union organisations from 15 countries – organised by the European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 45 million workers across Europe.
That conference agreed on a plan to develop trade union capacity in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, and to develop the role of unions in humanitarian actions and defending international humanitarian law.
My members have been clear that their solidarity is always with the oppressed – those suffering under illegal wars – from Iraq to Palestine, from Ukraine to Lebanon.
We have also seen how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s bombing of Iran have had huge and devastating impacts on the living standards of working-class people around the world.
Food prices and energy prices have spiked because of those conflicts. So, beyond our humanitarian solidarity, war is a real issue that has a material impact on the lives of workers around the world.
And right now the UK Government is talking about far-reaching cuts across Government departments – from the NHS to social security – to fund a new drive for war, with the threat posed by Russia being talked up as justification.
There is no doubt that Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine was an aggressive act. But four years into that terrible conflict, Russia has failed to advance and has become bogged down. The idea that it can fight a war on several fronts, let alone come rampaging through Europe, is fanciful.
And the UK already has higher military spending in cash terms than every EU nation bar Germany.
And as a share of GDP, our spending is higher than Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Military spending by Germany and the UK alone is higher than that of Putin’s Russia. The EU as a whole dwarfs Russian military spending.
That is why this international conference against war is so important.
We need to come together and make the case for social security, for our NHS, for education, and against war.
For more money in diplomacy and aid, not limitless increases in weapons and warfare.
Who wants to live in a country with shiny new bomber planes sitting idle, while record numbers of families are homeless and millions of our children’s lives are scarred by poverty?
Who wants new battleships when NHS waiting lists mean access to vital healthcare is effectively rationed, and social care remains a national disgrace?
The UK Government has set out ambitious targets for new green homes and for new renewable energy infrastructure, but instead they seem to want to prioritise investment in more military spending and environmentally-damaging AI data centres.
We need investment that creates a future of green jobs, environmental restoration and peace. Not investment in death and destruction.
PCS has been proud to support the Stop the War Coalition from the very beginning.
And we have been proven right time and time again. Whether it was disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under Blair, the Libya conflict under David Cameron, or today’s attack on Iran.
We have also been proud to march with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign against the war and genocide in Gaza, and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
The political class have got it wrong time after time, but the people in the UK and around the world have been proved right to oppose war, and to stand in solidarity with those under attack – and PCS will continue to do so.
Let’s continue to be a movement for peace and social justice.
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