23.02.2012

Stop the War Coalition: end exclusions

Say no to the exclusions at the upcoming Stop The War Coalition conference

The Stop the War Coalition annual conference takes place in London on Saturday March 3. It comes at a time when a military strike against Iran is looking more likely by the day, so the conference could provide a useful rallying point for anti-war forces in Britain. However, the STWC steering committee has impaired the unity of those forces by refusing to allow certain groups to affiliate - most pertinently in current circumstances Hands Off the People of Iran.

The CPGB is therefore proposing the following motion on March 3:

1. Conference notes that the first point of the Stop the War Coalition’s ‘Aims and constitution’, adopted in October 2001, defines the organisation’s key purpose thus: “The aim of the coalition should be very simple: to stop the war currently declared by the United States and its allies against ‘terrorism’.”

2. Conference also notes that the second point clarifies that “supporters of the coalition, whether organisations or individuals, will of course be free to develop their own analyses and organise their own actions”.

3. Further, the coalition defines its membership as “open to the affiliation of any organisation that accepts those objectives” and calls on “all peace activists and organisations, trade unionists, campaigners and labour movement organisations” to join.

4. Conference therefore regrets the exclusion from our ranks of two organisations that meet these criteria - Hands Off the People of Iran and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) - and instructs the incoming steering committee to overturn these decisions.