1. For all Trade Unionists
After getting two million on the streets, we need to take up the call made by trade union leaders for a reconvened TUC congress to discuss the war danger, and to popularise the idea of all forms of industrial action. The TUC General Council meets at Congress House, Great Russell Street, next Wednesday, February 26. It will discuss the call for a special TUC congress. There should be a mass lobby from 9.00 onwards. Over the next week, all union organisations should send resolutions to their own union HQ and to Congress House demanding a special congress, as provided for in rule 8k of the TUC's constitution. A petition is also available in the office, to be signed.
2. For all Local Groups
The Steering Committee is calling for a weekend of action over the evening of Friday February 28 and Saturday March 1 for all groups to lobby their MPs, at their constituency surgeries if possible. Take the message of the march directly to every single MP to make parliament stand up against war!
If your MP is already anti-war, join the lobby in a neighbouring constituency if possible, or stage another public demonstration in your own area. Let the Office know what you are planning to do.
Please inform the office via e-mail of all activities.
3. Build a People's Assembly for Peace
As part of our plans for civil disobedience if war breaks out, we have already agreed the proposal to book Westminster Central Hall and convene a People's Assembly to condemn war when Parliament will not. The authority of this body will be greatly enhanced and its publicity value increased if the local rallies and public meetings in the forthcoming period elect delegates to the People's Assembly. In doing this we begin to create an alternative centre of gravity for political debate.
Delegates should be as representative as possible of ALL the people who marched last weekend! More details.
4. Peace Aid!
We are exploring an offer from the organisers of the Glastonbury festival to put on a concert including U2, Travis and Coldplay. We would hope to do this in the next two or three weeks. If it comes off it will be a massive event on the Live Aid scale and, in some ways, the equivalent of another demonstration.
5. International Women's Day
We will organise peace events for International Women's Day, March 8, highlighting the civilian casualties of conflict. Further details to follow.
6. National Demonstration
The Steering Committee reaffirmed that a national demonstration against war will be held in London on the Saturday following the outbreak of any conflict.
Local demonstrations are also taking place in some areas, in the next few weeks. Even though it will be short notice we would urge all groups to give priority to the London Demonstration.
It also reaffirmed the desirability of regional and local demonstrations being organised at other times. Use the opportunity of organising these to choose the regional representatives to the Coalition Steering Committee, as agreed by the conference in January, wherever possible.
7. Sink Roots!
We need to make the roots of the STWC deeper. Local, very local, groups are now possible both geographically and in workplaces and unions. Contact the Office for help and suggestions.
We will be in the next few days, placing all the local groups that we have on our Database, on the website, with a contact number and name so that people can contact you directly. If you do not see your group listed on the web by the end of the week, please send us the details ASAP.
The Assembly will be a proper peoples' parliament with delegates drawn from the vast anti-war majority the length and breadth of Britain. It is intended as a public and democratic expression of the British people's will for peace and opposition to this war. And it is being supported by anti-war MPs, trade union leaders and veteran peace campaigners who are furious that the government is ignoring the voice - and the 2 million pairs of marching feet - of the British people.
Some three thousand people will be delegated from anti-war assemblies, trade union branches, mosques, churches, universities and other representative bodies across the country in the coming days. And on March 12 they will travel to London to "sit" at Central Hall, Westminster - just a stone's throw from the Parliament that is failing to heed our wishes - and debate what to do next to stop this war.
The London region of the Rail and Maritime Union agreed this morning (Friday) to the send five delegates to the Assembly and every RMT branch in London will send 2 delegates (making a total of 40 RMT delegates in the capital).
Union leader Bob Crow is urging others to follow the RMT lead: "If the
government won't stop this war, then people will have to work out how we can
stop this war by ourselves."
Labour MP for Islington, Jeremy Corbyn is also giving his full support to the
People's Assembly.
"Parliament has still not voted definitively on whether to go to war or
not, yet 40 per cent of all British armed forces are already in the battle field.
"This Assembly is an opportunity for ordinary people to really make themselves
heard."
The Peoples' Assembly Against The War is also being endorsed by Tony Benn, who
praised the Coalition's strategy.
"This is another opportunity provided by Stop The War Coalition to demonstrate
the real will of the British people.
"That rebel vote in The House of Commons the other day is a result of all
the work Stop the War Coalition have been doing.
"It's only a start but, its a far bigger start than I'd expected. If the
Coalition hadn't started work eighteen months ago, we'd be in a far worse place."
Notes to editors
There will be a People's Assembly Press Conference on Tuesday, March 4th at 11am in Room C, 4 Parliament Street, at the House of Commons with Jeremy Corbyn, Bob Crow, Tony Benn and Chair of the StWC, Andrew Murray