Delegates to the annual British Trade Union Congress conference on September 10 unanimously backed a motion calling for "work through the United Nations for the withdrawal without delay of coalition troops and for control of Iraq to be given to the Iraqi people".
The motion also condemned "the British and US governments' unilateral decision to wage war on Iraq" and called for "justice for the Palestinian people".
Moving the motion, Transport and General Workers Union general-secretary Tony Woodley said he was "proud to stand in front of 1 million people in Hyde Park [on February 15] and say that the war was wrong. It is wrong, it is illegal, it must not be allowed to happen again... With the deaths of innocent Iraqis and British soldiers we shouldn't be there, it's as simple as that.
"If I was the prime minister of our country, misled by Bush, with no weapons of mass destruction, with the Iraqi people clearly telling us they don't want us there, with the deaths of innocent civilians and British soldiers alike, I would turn around and review my position and apologise to the people of this country."
On Palestine, Woodley declared: "We want justice in the Middle East for Palestinians and I don't mean assassinations of their leaders and a separation wall. Make sure Israeli troops are taken out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and there are negotiations with the true leader of the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat."
Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) general-secretary Bob Crow seconded the motion: "The best way to support our boys and girls is to get them out of Iraq now, as quickly as possible. Instead of pouring billions into a war against the people of Iraq, we should be using the cash to fund our public services properly, pay decent pensions and scrap tuition fees.
"Blair lied to us about the weapons of mass destruction. The only weapons of mass destruction anyone's likely to find are ones put there by Bush and Blair. The war has made the world more dangerous, it's time for an end to it."
The National Union of Mineworkers' Steve Kemp expressed his union's "profound disgust at the eight-metre-tall 'apartheid wall' being built in Palestine. It cuts deep into the illegally occupied territory, it will ... completely encircle Palestine... This makes a Palestinian state unviable."
Woodley told a Stop the War Coalition fringe meeting in Brighton earlier in the week that the prime minister should resign over Iraq. Crow branded the Labour government cabinet "war criminals" at the RMT's national conference earlier this year.
From Green Left Weekly, September 17, 2003.
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