Veterans To join Emergency Protest To Stop Britain Bombing Syria

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Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be joining anti-war activists at an emergency protest in London on Tuesday night ahead of Wednesday’ vote on extending airstrikes from Iraq into Syria.

The protest organised by the Stop The War Coalition is scheduled to start Tuesday evening at 6pm in in Parliament Square.

Similar protests will be taking place in major cities across the UK over the course of the day.

RT reports:

Speaking to RT, Ben Griffin, who served on operations in Iraq and helped to found anti-war group Veterans for Peace UK, said: “It is making me feel physically sick, listening to politicians telling us that it is vital for the UK to get involved in the ongoing slaughter in Syria.

“I have heard it all before and seen the outcomes first hand. No good will come from this.”

Anti-war activists will gather in Westminster for the eleventh hour protest ahead of Wednesday’s debate and vote. A number of MPs opposed to the intervention are expected to address the crowd.

Scheduled to begin at 18.00 GMT, the Stop the War coalition protest could attract up to 3,000 people, according to its Facebook event.

“We are very, very angry about this. We think it doesn’t represent Labour opinion; we think it doesn’t really represent wider opinion,” Stop the War convener Lindsey German told the Guardian on Tuesday.

She said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to allow MP’s a free vote made it more likely that MPs would support bombing, but that many politicians seemed to be wavering.

“I’m quite interested that whereas we were talking about 100 [Labour] rebels at the weekend, people are now talking about 50, even with the free vote,” she said.

“I’m hopeful that we can push that figure still lower,” she said. “Everything I’ve seen in the past few days suggests that Labour MPs and even some Tory MPs are getting more skeptical.”

“The more that people scrutinize it, the worse the case looks. We are there to put as much pressure as we can on MPs,” she added.

 

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