British MPs’ arguments and information were influenced by a strong public opinion against war, itself a product of a mass movement which didn’t stop a war ten years ago but has prevented a further one now.

Stop the War Coalition national officer Kevin Ovenden looks at the arguments about whether protest makes a difference - and what we need to do now.

John Kerry was greeted by anti war protesters upon arrival at Foreign Office.

Campaigners challenge 'glorious conflict' narrative and plan to highlight treatment of conscientious objectors

Stop the War Coalition national officer John Rees looks at the factors that led to Cameron's humiliation in parliament, and the crisis in US power.

Mounting anti war sentiment needs to be mobilised to stop a fourth disastrous war in 12 years.

With its record of criminality and crimes against humanity, Britain has no right to pontificate and brow beat Syria, Iran or any other nation about "international obligations".

Despite his own role in Afghanistan and Iraq, General Sir David Richards does not allow catastrophic failure to get in the way of calling for yet more war

Military intervention, economic sanctions and arms sales have fuelled problems in the Middle East, not solved them.

Protest tomorrow 5pm, Wednesday 28 August, Downing Street, London

Western intervention in Syria, or anywhere else in the Middle East, would cause greater displacement and war.

Opinion polls show that a majority of the British public are opposed to the government escalating UK intervention in the Syrian war. On Thursday 9 May 2013 at 3pm, Stop the War Coalition delivered the following letter to David Cameron, UK prime minister, at 10 Downing Street, urging the government to abandon its interventionist policies.

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Dear Prime Minister,

We are writing to express our alarm at the increasing intervention by the UK government in the civil war which is now taking place in Syria. We believe that the future of Syria is for the Syrian people alone to decide, and that your actions can only worsen the situation.

Your campaign to increase the provision of arms to the Syrian opposition in response to allegations of chemical weapons being used makes no sense. There is no clear evidence that chemical weapons have been used, or by whom. Carla Del Ponte, a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry taking testimony from victims of the Syrian conflict, has recently expressed ‘strong, concrete suspicions’ that sarin nerve gas is being used by opposition forces. And even in the event that chemical weapons have been used, you have failed to make the case as to why arming one side would improve rather than aggravate the situation.

There has long been covert arming and provision of aid to the opposition by various powers, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UK, France and the US. Israel has now engaged in its second bombing raid on Syrian territory, in flagrant violation of the rules of international law.

The lifting of the EU arms embargo and the direct arming of opposition groups can only further fuel what is already a bloody civil war which is causing immense harm to many Syrians and which is threatening to further destabilise the whole region. Already fighting has spread to parts of Iraq.

The aim of the intervention so far has been to effect regime change, again illegal under international law. The solution in Syria cannot lie in further militarising the conflict, or in intervention by Western powers.

We fear that the aim of those intervening is to change the face of the Middle East, by weakening the influence of Iran through attacking its allies such as the Syrian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The recent Israeli air strikes on Syrian targets are part of this process and represent an act of war against another country.

We believe that it is for the people of the Middle East to decide their own future and that the Western powers have a record and history of intervention there which has been a key source of the region's problems. We also believe that majority opinion in Britain, according to recent polls, is against such intervention, especially if it is designed to effect regime change.

We therefore urge you to abandon your interventionist policy.

Yours,

Jeremy Corbyn MP Chair, Stop the War Coalition
Lindsey German Convenor, Stop the War Coalition

Whatever Congress may decide, a U.S. military strike against Syria will still be illegal, immoral and dangerous, even reckless, says Phyllis Bennis

The Stop the War Coalition strongly opposes any military attack on Syria. While we oppose all use of chemical weapons, the latest alleged such attack in Damascus should not be used as a pretext for further exacerbating an already bloody civil war.

It seems that the Western governments have already made up their minds about this attack before it has even been reported on by UN weapons inspectors. They are demanding that ‘something must be done’ even though their record of ‘doing something’ has been nothing short of catastrophic.

There have been numerous western interventions in the Middle East and South Asia over the past 12 years. While the attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were all argued for on humanitarian grounds, they have all increased the levels of killing and misery for the ordinary people of those countries. They were in reality all about regime change. This is also what Syria is about.

The same people who brought us those wars have learnt nothing from their mistakes. Now the US, Britain, France and their allies in Turkey and Saudi Arabia are pushing for air strikes. The misnamed envoy for peace in the Middle East, Tony Blair, is once again urging an attack.

Such an attack will have no basis in international law, nor will it have any moral force, despite claims by US Secretary of State John Kerry, from governments who in the past supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons and who have used depleted uranium and white phosphorus in Iraq.

The truth is that this latest plan is about intervening to reshape the Middle East in the strategic interests of the West. Military intervention will make a solution to this complex civil war even more difficult and will be a direct violation of the agreements made at the recent G8 meeting to attempt to resolve this war by an International Conference.

We will be protesting and campaigning against any attack and demand that the British government listen to public opinion, as expressed in recent polls, and play no part in any such attack.

Jeremy Corbyn MP, joined by peace campaigners and activists, delivered a letter the UK Foreign Office on Wednesday 20 March 2003, calling on prime minister David Cameron, foreign secretary William Hague and the British government not to exacerbate the conflict in Syria by supplying even more arms to the region.

European Union foreign ministers are set to meet in Dublin on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 March to discuss lifting an arms embargo on supplying weapons to the conflict. On the tenth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Stop the War Coalition is adamant that such action is likely to inflame the situation and lead to further suffering for the Syrian people, and risk a wider regional conflict.

The United Kingdom and France have been leading the charge to overturn the embargo, and for this reason Stop the War is campaigning against the actions of the British government.

The text of the letter reads as follows:

Dear Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary

We write to express our alarm at your call for the EU arms embargo on Syria to be lifted. We deplore the fact that the Syrian conflict has resulted in a destructive civil war, and urge you to acknowledge that supplying more weapons for this conflict will make a bad situation worse.

Fighting in Syria has already spilled over into Lebanon and Iraq. Increasing the number of weapons circulating in this heavily-armed region carries the clear danger that an escalating conflict may encourage a regional war.

The people of Syria are experiencing a tragedy of huge dimensions. In February this year, the United Nations estimated that 70,000 have already died as a result of the conflict, many of them civilians. Over 200,000 more Syrians have fled the country and between four and six millions are internally displaced.

We call on you to take no action likely to increase the conflict. We call instead for the governments of Britain and France to throw their weight behind an inclusive Syrian-led solution and help bring this civil war to an end. We urge the European Union meanwhile to uphold its arms ban.

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Chair
Lindsey German, Convenor
Stop the War Coalition, 20 March 2013

No doubt as the war escalates we will be told that there should be more intervention in order to end the war, but at every stage such intervention has only escalated it.