[JNV] Vote Anti-War - Eight Brief Points

[Milan Rai]

Dear all,

Eight brief points with 24 hours to go.


1) In His Own Words

'When people go and vote on May 5th, John, they're not just voting for
their local member of Parliament, or even for the Government, they're
voting for the Prime Minister.'
Alan Milburn, interviewed by John Humphries, Today programme, BBC Radio 4,
Wednesday 27 April 2005, 8.10am


2) The Real Fear - In Their Own Words

'Labour fears for its majority' (headline, front page, Financial Times, 30
April 2005)
James Blitz, Political Editor, FT: 'Tony Blair enters the final weekend of
the general election campaign today assured of victory but beset by fears
that his massive majority will be severely eroded, destroying his hopes of
serving a full third term.'

A Labour Party strategist told Blitz: 'We're in a situation where a switch
of vote by a few hundred people in more than 50 marginal seats could end
up throwing out the sitting Labour candidates. That in turn could make the
difference to the overall result. *We don't know if we're coming back with
a majority of 50 or 150.*'


3) Scaremongering Exposed

'Vote for Lib Dems will *not* let in Tories' (headline, front page,
Independent, 30 April 2005)
Andrew Grice, Political Editor, Independent: 'Labour's attempts to warn
its wavering supporters that a vote for the Liberal Democrats could allow
Michael Howard into No. 10 "by the back door" was undermined yesterday in
a detailed study carried out for the Independent.'

John Curtice, the respected psephologist and professor of politics at
Strathclyde University, said: "The most likely consequence of any large
switch from Labour to the Liberal Democrats is simply nobody would have an
overall majority.'

According to the Curtice study, 'even if there is a 9 per cent swing from
Labour to the Lib Dems Labour would still have an overall majority of 48'.

The swing needed for Labour to lose its overall majority is 11.5 per cent,
or 'the equivalent of one in four Labour voters defecting, not one in 10.'


4) No Brown Illusions

'Brown's support for Blair may undermine leadership hopes' (Independent,
30 April 2005)
'Gordon Brown's decision to ride to the Prime Minister's rescue over Iraq
increases the likelihood of a "stop Brown" campaign when the Prime
Minister steps down, Labour left-wingers said yesterday... Several
left-wingers said yesterday Mr Brown's intervention over Iraq had
strengthened their resolve to rally behind a candidate to oppose him...'

'One candidate defending a safe seat said: "Brown has signed a suicide
pact by taking this approach. He has been bolted on to responsibility for
Iraq. Apart from Robin Cook, none of the Cabinet appears to have raised
any objections about the illegality. On so many issues, Gordon Brown is
obsessive about detail. It is impossible to think this just slipped by him
as he sat at the Cabinet table." '


5) Don't Believe It Until It Has Been Officially Denied

'I can't say that if we win this election that means everyone who
supported us approved of Iraq. That would be absurd.'
Tony Blair, interviewed in the Independent, 21 April 2005
(Front page headline: 'I will not take election victory as vindication for
the war')


6) We Are The Majority

'Most people want British troops withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this
year, according to a poll by NOP for The Independent.'

'By a margin of 3-1, voters want British forces to come home by the time
their United Nations mandate expires in December. Sixty per cent of
people, and 58 per cent of Labour supporters, want to see the troops
withdrawn by then, and only 19 per cent disagree.'

(Independent, 26 April 2005, archived at
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0426-03.htm>)

Most Labour voters, most Lib Dem voters and most Conservative voters want
British troops back from Iraq by the end of the year. This is official Lib
Dem policy, but is opposed by the leaderships of both the Labour and
Conservative parties.


7) Lying To The End

'I had the choice, faced with the knowledge of his long defiance of his UN
obligations, to leave Saddam in power, or to remove him. I chose to remove
him. In this case there was no middle way.' Tony Blair, 'This election is
about more than the war - or me', Independent, 3 May 2005

The 'middle way', the legal way, the way that would not have killed over a
hundred thousand Iraqis, would have been to decide in mid-March 2003 to
wait for the UN weapons inspectors to set Baghdad the 'key remaining
disarmament tasks'.

The 'middle way' would have been to continue disarming Iraq's al-Samoud II
missiles, to continue inspecting Iraqi facilities, to continue
interviewing Iraqi scientists in the search for the truth, to acknowledge
that Iraq *was* cooperating with inspectors and that progress was being
made.

The 'middle way' would have been to obey international law, to abide by
the majority view in the UN Security Council, to respect the wishes of
Iraq's neighbours, to resist George W. Bush's burning impatience, and to
wait not years, nor weeks, but 'months' for the UN weapons inspectors to
complete their work and to tell the world whether or not Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction.

Instead you chose to serve US power, to gamble with the lives of millions
of Iraqi civilians, and to trample on the expressed will of the majority
of people in Britain, in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the wider
world.


8) Vote Anti-War

More wars are coming. The occupation of Iraq goes on.

If Tony Blair is re-elected with a majority of over 100, this will be seen
as vindication for the war.

The polls agree that there is virtually no chance that Michael Howard will
be elected Prime Minister, but there is a strong possibility, a likelihood
even, that Tony Blair will be re-elected with a massive majority. This is
our worst-case scenario. (See <www.j-n-v.org>)

Vote anti-war.

Take a risk for peace.

Remember, you're not just voting for your local MP, you're also voting for
the Prime Minister.



-- 
Milan Rai
Justice Not Vengeance
landline 0845 458 9571 (UK) +44 1424 428 792 (int)
mobile phone (0)7980 748 555
www.j-n-v.org