00:01 John McDonnell: [Inaudible.] I was brought up a Catholic — no longer, but I'm overloaded by guilt anyway. Your chastisement was completely correct, and I'm shamed into guilt, really, about [the fact that] my major contribution to the Syrian campaign seems to [have been to] pull the raffle today [?]. And I apologise — I was late, I apologise.
00:32 We've been launching the fast food workers' campaign today, all along Oxford Street. We've been outside McDonald's, Burger King, Costa, trying to demand the living wage and recruit workers into the bakers' union. It's been tremendously successful so far. So I apologise for my lateness.
01:03 I think there's been a sort of deep psychological recoil on the issue of Syria. When the revolution first started and the local coordinating committees were established, there was almost elation that this was part of the Arab Spring, and that there was a revolutionary movement that the British left and the trade union movement, [everything] that's progressive, could unanimously support. Because it's now become more complex, people have recoiled from even talking about the issue. There's not much dialogue going on.
01:03 I think, despite the small numbers, this is quite an important meeting today, because we need to re-establish and have some form of movement in solidarity with those original aims of the revolution itself.
01:33 I also think it is worth recognising that we were successful in preventing the UK government linking up with Barack Obama and launching a military attack on Syria. That was a success. And if you listened to the debate that took place in the media and even in the House of Commons — God help us — it was a success as a result of the campaigning that went on against the Iraq war, because people learned the lessons: first of all that people weren't willing to put up with another military intervention by this government in the Middle East; but in addition to that, they learned the lessons of what military interventions by the UK government and the American imperialists result in, from the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan [?].
02:04 And don't underestimate the fact that there was a deal done with Barack Obama, and that's why parliament was recalled with such urgency. They expected that weekend to go in with military weapons; they expected to be supporting a military attack. So to actually defeat that proposed attack [?] I think was a major achievement — and it wasn't done by parliamentarians, it was done actually as a result of the protest that went on by people like ourselves throughout the different parts of, particularly, the trade union movement.
02:34 But since then — since the initial wave of euphoria about the first wave of the revolution, since defeating the military aggression into Syria — there's been this element of recoil. You talk to people and it's exactly as you say: it's too bloody complex, no one knows who to back, who's on the ground any more. I was listening to the description I came in on earlier about the different splits in the different parts of the movement — well, it's almost as bad as the SWP. It's just extraordinarily complicated in terms of what's happening, and people are unsure who to align with and how to intervene.
03:05 So I think the one thing that we need to talk about is how best we do it, and what the levels of intervention are, [and] what the best actions are that we can undertake in terms of that intervention.
03:36 I think there are different levels. One is straightforward intervention, [which] I think is critically important: I actually think physical support is incredibly important, because of the suffering that's going on particularly within the camps at the moment. And the lack of physical support by western nations in particular is a scandal, is a disgrace. To allow people to live in those levels of poverty, children without education and without adequate physical supplies, I think is a scandal, an absolute disgrace. So I think we should be pressing the UK government and others to ensure that there is physical humanitarian aid going in to support people.
04:08 The second element of humanitarian aid is to allow Syrians to come here as refugees, and not to put caps on the number of people. And these — you don't have to be on the left or a progressive to agree these — these are just basic interventions that you'd expect any civilised government to intervene on. But this government isn't; in fact quite the reverse. So I think it's quite important we mobilise at least on that level.
04:38 I think there's a second level of intervention, which is: how do we ensure that those who are intervening themselves — particularly those states that are supporting individual groups in the military struggle that's going on out there, and for their own purposes — how do we intervene against them?
05:08 My view [is] we should intervene and expose and do everything we can to prevent the intervention of all those countries [in] providing arms and weapons to those different groups right the way across the piece in Syria, because each one of them is supplying weapons — whether it's Russia, Qatar or the Saudis or whatever, or even the Turks. All of them are providing weapons and aid to individual groups for their own means, not for the betterment of the Syrian people themselves, not because they supported the original aims of the revolution. In fact, we heard earlier, the Saudis just want to stabilise the situation and they're happy to live with whatever is out there. Others want to intervene in a way that they can maybe get some form of client state to their liking [?].
05:39 So just as we want to picket outside the Russian embassy and elsewhere, we should be doing it to all of those states that are intervening by supplying military weapons and encouraging the physical force arguments that are going on within Syria itself. And I think it's important that we do establish ourselves as part of an overall peace movement that is supporting those people who want peace — because without peace that revolution can't achieve its objectives.
06:10 The third thing is, well, who do we link up with? I agree with what was said — I caught some of the discussion [?]. Where there are the local coordinating committees still there, we should be supporting them in every way we possibly can. And one of the interventions that someone made a few months ago was just enabling them to have the equipment to communicate, to enable them to expose what's going on on the ground — so they can have the physical materials to be able to get the message out, an independent message rather than one that's adopted through some state regime or through some client state operation that's taking place within Syria itself. So I think there are organisations that we can align ourselves with, definitely, on the ground, that are in the true spirit of the original revolution.
06:40 Finally, let me just say this. How do we overcome this quietude that's within the labour and trade union movement within this country? Because it has gone quiet. There've been no big meetings on Syria. Most of the trade unions that we know haven't really engaged — they've taken formal positions, but not really engaged in itself. And the political parties themselves as well have been allowed to shy away from it.
07:12 Well, I agree with what we said earlier: we need to go on the stump now. Every one of us has a responsibility. Everyone who's a member of an individual trade union, whatever branch or whatever section they're in, should be raising it within that trade union. Whatever political parties we're in, we should be raising it within the parties as well, and actually trying to encourage that wider debate about the levels of support and assistance that we can give.
07:42 We've launched the People's Parliament in parliament, because parliament hasn't had any politics in it [?] — there's no politics in the House of Commons [inaudible]. So we've opened up the rooms in parliament, [and] we've [called it the] People's Parliament, and everyone can come along [and] talk about whatever issue they possibly can. It's trying to replicate what went on when we were in control of the GLC, when we opened up County Hall and anyone could come along and talk about a particular issue, organise a meeting — and that infected the GLC regime with radicalism.
08:12 You never know. I don't have those ambitions of infecting this government or some of the political parties that we have, but it gives us a format in which we can [have] that debate. As part of the People's Parliament we've had a number of meetings which have been packed with people who I don't recognise. Normally I go to these meetings [and] it's like your whole life passing in front of you; actually, people have been turning up and I haven't recognised any of them, a particularly new generation.
08:12 We should be doing this. I'll just give you this invitation: I'll book the room, let's do this in parliament, let's have everybody. And from that [comes] the old Marxist concept of praxis — theory with practice. It's what you taught us: actually, not just discuss the issues, but from that agree what practical actions we're going to undertake, both within the labour and trade union movement, by encouraging the debate and forcing people to have this debate within the labour and trade union movement; but also maybe infecting that wider political debate about what practical actions we could take.
09:14 I agree with you. I feel ashamed that we haven't done enough. I feel ashamed I haven't done enough. And from today I just give this commitment: I'll do all I can to ensure that there's that wider political debate, [and] recruit [?] the labour and trade union movement to participate in that. But more importantly, I think it is about hard, concrete, practical actions.
09:44 One final point: don't underestimate that there *is* a lobby within parliament taking place at the moment about military intervention again. If you've listened to some of the people around Alistair Burt and elsewhere, they're arguing at the moment that because we didn't intervene militarily, Syria is in this mess, and therefore there's a justification for military intervention at the moment on humanitarian grounds. That hasn't gone away.
10:16 So I think: the more that we, first of all, establish a direct line of communication which demonstrates and gives out the reality of what's happening on the ground; the more we give humanitarian assistance in particular; the more we give every strengthening that we can to the voice of democracy and socialist change within Syria itself — I think the more we'll fend off the potential of again reopening this issue about military intervention. And that does need hard work, and I commit myself to it. Solidarity.
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