Weekly Worker 584 Friday July 8 2005

Terror attacks will be
used by Blair to further attack democratic rights

The July 7 terror attacks on London are indefensible. They were designed to maximise carnage. Communists unhesitatingly condemn those who planted and detonated the four bombs which killed more than 50 people and injured over 700 others.

This was a deeply inhuman act. Reactionary anti-capitalism is no ally of the working class. It is antithetical to democracy, socialism and basic human values. It is itself a manifestation of capitalist barbarism.

These bombs will do nothing - not a thing - to hold back, weaken or divert the rulers of the G8. On the contrary their meeting at Glen-eagles was given a tremendous propaganda boost. George W Bush, Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin - terrorists on a grand scale in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya - eagerly paraded their so-called humanitarian and peace-loving credentials before the world’s media.

Those who died, those who were injured, were ordinary working class Londoners. The very sort of people who on February 15 2003 rallied in huge numbers - two million of them - to demonstrate their opposition to the pending imperialist war against Iraq.

July 7 was an attack on them. Not the warmongers and their obsolete system.

What the bombers have done is strike a blow against the anti-war and democratic movement in Britain. Their action certainly plays straight into the hands of Tony Blair and the New Labour government.

Blair will cynically use the bombs.

He will beat the patriotic drum. He will strive to cement national unity in the ‘war against terrorism’.

He will use the attacks to justify the continuation of Britain’s junior role in the occupation of Iraq.

He will insist that the case for the introduction of ID cards, more surveillance, further police powers, detention without trial and effectively turning Britain into a giant open prison is now unanswerable.

 The CPGB welcomes the statement issued by George Galloway on behalf of Respect. It forthrightly condemns the bombers and insists that no one can “condone” their action (July 7).

The Socialist Workers Party forms an effective majority in the leadership of Respect. Therefore a statement from Respect ought also to count as a statement from the SWP.

Shamefully, however, the SWP does not condemn the bombers in its Socialist Worker statement, signed by editor Chris Bambery and SWP national organiser Martin Smith.

While it notes that the “terrible attacks” targeted “ordinary working people” and are “in no way a blow against imperialism or the G8 leaders”, it assigns “responsibility” only to the British government (July 7).

The SWP refused to condemn the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. A perverted anti-imperialism meant it adopted the same stance over the Madrid, Bali, Mombasa and other such terrorist outrages. Its July 7 statement represents a continuation of the SWP’s rotten approach of backing the ‘enemy of my enemy’.

The CPGB is quite clear. We shall continue to demand the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. Not because we want to show ‘solidarity’ with the July 7 terrorists, nor because we fear further ‘punishment’ bombings.

No, as a matter of principle we oppose all the imperialist wars and adventures by our ‘own’ ruling class.

We shall also continue the fight to safeguard and extend democratic rights in Britain. Neither Blair’s anti-terrorism nor reactionary anti-capitalism can distract us from that task.

Our goal is a clear: a fully democratic Britain in a fully democratic world. In other words, socialism and the beginning of universal human liberation.

Provisional Central Committee, Communist Party of Great Britain

Print this page