War and Terror

The "Birmingham bombings", on 21 November 1974, killed 21 people and injured 182 others through bombs in Birmingham city centre.

The reaction to the killings included protest strikes; some workers seen to be sympathetic to Irish Republicanism being driven out of their jobs; and drastic curbs on civil liberties through a Prevention of Terrorism Act rushed through Parliament (with no votes against - supposedly as a temporary measure, but renewed again and again over decades until its provisions were folded into more recent "anti-terrorist" legislation).

The ‘Great War’ was finally over. When it had begun in August 1914, the British government predicted that it would be won by Christmas, but it had dragged on for four more years, with dreadful suffering and loss of life. In 1916, Britain began conscripting its men to fight.

Now that the fighting was done, the soldiers expected to go home to their civilian lives. Lloyd George had induced then to vote for him by pledging rapid demobilisation.

11 November 1918 had been merely an armistice. The war would not be officially over until peace terms had been negotiated.

The victorious Allied countries began six months of talks in Paris in January 1919, before compelling Germany to sign the treaty that ended the war at Versailles on 28 June.

On 25 June, Labour Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith made a speech to the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank made up of retired generals and military-industrial-complex grandees with well-paid jobs in “strategic intelligence consulting firms” and the like.

You might have hoped that a leader of a radically left-wing Labour Party would have had some hard words for the masters of war. Maybe something about scrapping Trident, nationalising British arms manufacturers, and repurposing the shipyards and factories for socially-useful ends.

In January 2018, US President Donald Trump cancelled a planned trip to the UK.

His stated reason was that the famously unsuccessful realtor didn’t fancy the “off-location” US Embassy. But the real reason was almost certainly that Trump wanted to duck the huge wave of protest that anyone could see would meet any visit. The racist, authoritarian and climate-change-denying policies of the Trump administration stoked a storm of indignation and a series of huge rallies at the very suggestion of his visit.

"Through immigration raids, detention and deportations, the government is trying to tear our communities apart. We must fight back together".

"As a society we desperately need to change the narrative on migration and, as LGBTQ people, we can start by challenging the notion that we should fear migrant communities and by resisting these attempts by right-wing nationalists to pinkwash their politics."
Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants

On 11 November activists from LGSMigrants and others held a ″remembrance day″ for migrants.

The bomb on London’s District Line tube thankfully did not kill or seriously maim people travelling to school or work. Its potential to have done so is horrifying.

Once again Daesh have claimed responsibility for the attack. Early indications are that had the bomb detonated it would have been on a similar scale to the one used in the Manchester Arena bombings in May.

The role of tube staff in ensuring there was a safe evacuation of Parsons Green station highlights the potential consequences of further staff cuts and attempts to leave many stations without any staff.

“Jeremy Corbyn has said that terror attacks in Britain are our own fault,” claimed Theresa May on Friday. “I want to make something clear… there can never be an excuse for terrorism, there can be no excuse for what happened in Manchester.”

Chelsea Manning was released from Fort Leavenworth, the maximum security prison on 18 May, after seven years of harassment, brutality and enforced solitary confinement.

Manning was sentenced in August 2013 for leaking classified wire cables and military records to WikiLeaks. At the time she was a military intelligence analyst and for slightly bizarre reasons will remain classified as a member of the military for a period after her release.

Marine A: Right, get him closer in so PGSS can’t see what we’re doing to him… Marine A: Where is the CAT, Ugly call sign? [Referring to the helicopter that is watching them pretending to apply a field dressing to an injured Afghan insurgent.] Marine B: It’s gone that way? Marine A: Yeah Marine B: Went south, mate? (Gunshot) M: What was that? Marine A: There you are, shuffle off this mortal coil you cunt. It’s nothing you wouldn’t do to us. Marine B: I know. M: Exactly. Marine A: Obviously this doesn’t go anywhere fellas. Marine B: Yeah, roger, mate.