Is the Anti-War Lobby Really Serious?

www.vote4peace.org.uk has just launched to much fanfare. This pressure group, with a "war chest" of £100,000 or more, is campaigning to save MPs in marginal seats who voted against the war with Iraq.

While I admire their organisation and motivation, I can't help thinking they’re not really serious. In their position, I would do something very different indeed. Instead of spreading my efforts across the country, I would concentrate on just one constituency - Sedgefield.

Tony Blair has a majority of 17,713 over the Tories in his own constituency. If 18,000 dedicated anti-war campaigners moved to Sedgefield for a few months and voted Tory, the chief architect of British involvement in the war would be unseated and for the next 50 years, no Prime Minister would dare repeat the mistake.

I reckon this would cost about £10m, including the costs of the campaign (£10k), the pre-campaign (£90k) and rent (£9.9m). If 2m people can march on the streets of London against the war then I'm sure they can stump up a fiver each to stop it.

Now I'm not suggesting this should be done - and it wouldn't stop the war, just encourage Tony's successor PM to withdraw our troops - but it would be an effective way of making a point. Tony I think has earned a place in our Parliament even if one does daydream occasionally about what other potential leaders might achieve.

My conclusion is that www.vote4peace.org.uk is less motivated by opposition to the war and more by a desire to keep out Tories in marginal constituencies. And in that regard, I can't complain.


You Can't Be Serious?
"If 18,000 dedicated anti-war campaigners moved to Sedgefield for a few months and voted Tory, the chief architect of British involvement in the war would be unseated and for the next 50 years, no Prime Minister would dare repeat the mistake."

18,000 peace protestors setting up camp in Sedgefield? Bonkers. Maybe in the Ukraine this kind of thing works - but not in Sedgefield.

These peaceniks are a bunch of Greens and Liberals with an implicit anti-Tory agenda - ironic now that Howard says a la Kerry he would vote against the war that he voted for before. A lot of them are pro-Palestinian I see - and I haven't ever once noticed any of them campaigning against suicide bombers or terrorists. Peace on their terms would see Saddam still in power and the terrorists victorious in the Middle East. Blair deserves some credit for progress in the Middle East - Saddam in jail and movement forward on Israel - Palestine is progress.