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18 July 2003
CRUMBLING
VICTORY
Blair And Bush Lose ‘Trust’
REGIME UNCHANGED
Update Number 1 |
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‘I thought it was gangster capitalism, nothing to do
with morality at all. Did Tony Blair mislead the country? I suspect
he did.’
John Peel, radio presenter (Independent, 4 June 2003,
p. 1)
The Unpersuaded Public
British public support for the war on Iraq was shallow and brittle.
A review of the polls in the Guardian at the end of April noted,
‘The war against Iraq saw one of the most dramatic shifts
in British public opinion in recent political history’ —
but this was not because the British people were persuaded by
the arguments. It seems they felt but to ‘support the troops’
by supporting the war, despite its illegitimacy.
The Guardian/ICM war tracker poll saw Tony Blair’s personal
poll rating plunge over 15 months from plus 42 in November 2001
to minus 20 in February — his worst personal rating in six
years in Downing Street. ‘Polls also show that it was the
prime minister's reputation which took the hit while Labour's
standing in the country escaped without suffering serious damage.
Labour's lead in the polls was cut from 13 points in January to
six points in March but the party was never in the kind of trouble
Mr Blair faced.’ (Alan Travis, ‘Voters alienated by
prospects of conflict finally swung behind military action’,
Guardian, 26 Apr. 2003, online version)
Public opinion was anti-war from Aug. 2002 until mid-Mar. 2003
(with one exception: a poll taken in the aftermath of the Bali
bombing). ‘From November anti-war feeling grew progressively
stronger and peaked over the February weekend of the mass demonstration
in London, when a majority of British voters — 52% —
said they opposed the war.’ (Guardian, 26 Apr.
2003)
We know now that the 15 February demonstrations in London and
Glasgow put enormous pressure on the Government. On that day Tony
Blair was in Glasgow to sell his strategy to the Scottish Labour
Party. ‘This really was the moment of maximum pressure on
him,’ said one of his closest aides. ‘As he travelled
up there, we just didn’t know whether the event would turn
into a fiasco.’ (FT, 29 May 2003, p. 17)
However, by 23 Mar.—four days after the first bombs had
begun to fall—‘opposition had slumped to just 30%
and support for military action soared to 54%.’ The Guardian
comments, ‘Once it became clear that British troops were
going into action anyway, those who had been calling for a second
resolution as a condition of their support had to make a choice—and
the polling evidence appears to be that most, including Labour
voters, chose to support the war.’ (Guardian, 26
Apr. 2003)
The Second Resolution: tony blair
lied
At the beginning of the year, 68 per cent people questioned for
Channel 4’s Powerhouse programme opposed war without
a new UN resolution. ‘The figure is up 11 points on when
the question was asked in September.’ (Mirror,
7 Jan. 2003, p. 11) On the other hand, most people supported war
in the event of a new UN resolution authorising it. By 20 Feb.,
59 per cent of people held this position, but this was down from
72 per cent a month earlier. Without UN endorsement, only 21 per
cent supported war. (Sunday Times, 23 Feb. 2003, p. 13)
There was a large bloc of ‘anti-war’ opinion willing
to be swung by the passing of a Resolution which could be presented
as authorising the war. (The draft Resolution proposed by Britain
did not actually do this—see Anti-War
Briefings 36, 37, 38 and Regime Unchanged
by Milan Rai.)
This soft bloc crumbled and supported the war despite the fact
that Tony Blair had promised not to go to war without a second
Resolution, unless the inspectors reported Iraqi non-co-operation
(they didn’t), a majority of Security Council members were
in favour of the Resolution (they weren’t) and there was
an ‘unreasonable veto’ by one or more of the permanent
members of the Security Council (no such veto ever needed to be
cast because the British withdrew the Resolution before it came
to a vote). The Prime Minister made his fateful promise in a press
conference on 13 January, and on the BBC’s Newsnight
programme on 7 February 2003:
The only qualification we have added
. . . is if you did have a breach, went back to the UN but someone
put an unreasonable or unilateral block down on action, now in
those circumstances we have said we can’t be in a position
where we are confined in that way. If the inspectors do report
that they can’t do their work properly because Iraq is not
co- operating there’s no doubt that under the terms of the
existing United Nations Resolution that that’s a breach
of the Resolution. In those circumstances there should be a further
Resolution. If, however, a country were to issue a veto . . .
If a country unreasonably in those circumstances put down a veto
then I would consider action outside of that . . . Firstly you
can’t just do it with America, you have to get a majority
in the security council . . . because the issue of a veto doesn’t
even arise unless you get a majority in the security council.
(13 Jan. <http://www.number- 10.gov.uk/output/Page3005.asp>;
and ‘Tony Blair on Newsnight—part one’, 7 Feb.,
search Guardian online version).
In the debate about Tony Blair’s ‘trustworthiness’,
the betrayal of this pledge should be playing a central role.
On the eve of war, a poll found that most people in Britain favoured
giving Iraq a deadline for completing the inspection process.
29 per cent said, ‘The UN inspectors are making progress
and need more time’. 65 per cent said, ‘Progress is
limited — a deadline is needed for military action’.
(Sunday Times, 16 Mar. 2003, p. 2) Iraq was not given
a deadline for co-operation. Saddam Hussein and his sons were
given a 48-hour ultimatum to leave Iraq.
This same poll found that, ‘Nearly half, 49%, say that to
go to war without a second resolution would be against the will
of the British people and that Tony Blair should not continue
in office in these circumstances.’ (Sunday Times,
16 Mar. 2003, p. 2)
THE SOFT CENTRE CRUMBLES AGAIN
It seems that the soft central bloc of anti-war opinion—around
40 per cent of British public opinion — fell in behind the
Government not because of any new evidence or any new arguments,
but because British soldiers were in the firing line, and they
had to be ‘supported’. The danger for the Government
is that this same bloc of unpersuaded and coerced support is (again)
shallow and brittle. Hence the recent swing against the war.
‘Thinking about the build-up to the war in Iraq and everything
that has happened since, do you think that taking military action
was the right or wrong thing to do?’ Wrong thing to do June
2003: 34% (up from April 24%) Right thing to do June 2003: 58%
(down from April 64%). (Peter Riddell, ‘Trust for Blair
slumps over Iraq war handling,’ Times, 14 June
2003, p. 2)
Same poll: ‘Britain and America deliberately exaggerated
the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in order
to win support for going to war.’ Yes 58%. No 39%. This
was before the current round of revelations.
Warning for the movement
‘Regardless of whether Iraq actually did have weapons of
mass destruction, the war was justified because it got rid of
Saddam Hussein.’ Disagree 27%. Agree 70%. Labour voters:
84% agreed. Liberal Democrats: 54% agreed. The argument about
the war cannot be won simply by arguments about the weapons issue.
We have to take on the ‘regime changes argument. See previous
Anti- War Briefings, and Regime
Unchanged: Why The War Was Wrong, by Milan Rai (Pluto, September,
available at a
discount here).
Another warning for the movement from the
June poll: ‘The issue of whether Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction is only being raised again now because people who
opposed the war throughout are trying to find a new reason for
sayiong it wasn’t the right thing to do.’ Disagree
29%. Agree 68%. This was in June, but this underlying attitude
may persist.
President Bush suffers
A 12 July poll in the US found President Bush’s overall
job approval rating dropped to 59 percent, down nine points in
the past 18 days. That decline exactly mirrored the slide in public
support for Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq, which
slid to 58 percent. Seventy per cent believed the US should continue
to keep troops in Iraq, even if it means additional casualties.
57 per cent still thought the war with Iraq was worth the sacrifice,
down 7 points from late June, and 13 points since the war ended.
Fifty percent on 12 July said Bush intentionally exaggerated evidence
suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, while nearly
as many — 46 percent — disagreed. ‘Taken together,
the latest survey findings suggest that the mix of euphoria and
relief that followed the quick U.S. victory in Iraq continues
to dissipate, creating an uncertain and volatile political environment.’
(Washington Post, 12 July, p. A01)
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PUBLIC OPINION
Noam Chomsky once wrote, ‘one who is seriously opposed to
the use of force to control the empire—the “integrated
world economy” dominated by American capital, to use the
technical euphemism—must pay careful attention to the actual
state of American opinion’, and work to alter its condition.
The level of culture that can be achieved in the United States
‘is a life-and- death matter for large masses of suffering
humanity’.
With Britain’s significance as a ‘legitimator’
of US violence (in the eyes of US public opinion at least), much
the same can be said of British public opinion. Whether the ‘soft
bloc’ of British anti-war opinion can be won back by persuasion
and information, and that sector of opinion can be ‘hardened’
into principled opposition to war, will have enormous significance.
JNV BOOK Regime Unchanged: Why The
War Was Wrong by Milan Rai (Pluto, 2003)
PLEASE SUPPORT JNV (Justice Not Vengeance) 0845 458 9571
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