My introduction to politics came in 2003, when I marched against the Iraq war alongside a million people in Britain and 36 million others around the world.
The anti-war movement was right. The war was illegal, and it unleashed untold suffering, instability and violence across the region. Amid that chaos, Western forces moved swiftly to capture Iraq’s nationalised, unionised oil industry, which was then sold off to international oil companies.
Today, the need to build an international movement for peace feels just as urgent as it did then — perhaps even more so. We are living through a period of growing instability, militarisation and nationalism.
Donald Trump has returned to office more unpredictable and openly aggressive in his approach to foreign policy, threatening intervention abroad and undermining long-standing international norms and alliances.
The United States has given Israel free rein to carry out a genocide in Gaza, and to enable the harassment, displacement and killing of Palestinians in the West Bank. That pattern is now extending across the region, with strikes on Iran and the mass displacement of a million people in southern Lebanon.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also reshaped global politics, deepening tensions between nuclear powers and creating a prolonged and destructive conflict with consequences far beyond eastern Europe. Russian state-sponsored cyber actors are now interfering in Western countries to sow division and amplify support for the far right.
In Britain, many of us have felt sick to our stomachs watching Conservative and Labour governments stand solidly behind Israel throughout a livestreamed genocide. We have marched, campaigned and raised our voices.
And while we have been smeared for doing so, our government has sat down with war criminals, provided political cover, conducted daily intelligence flights over Gaza for Israel, allowed UK-based weapons manufacturers to supply the IDF, and labelled as terrorists the activists who had the courage to intervene.
The Green Party’s approach to security and defence is rooted in the recognition that peace requires an approach to international relations built on openness, honesty, mutual respect and accountability under international law.
We need to rethink who our allies are in this effort. With the US increasingly acting as an unreliable partner and disregarding international law, we must strengthen relationships with our European partners and build bridges with nations in the global South.
National security in the 21st century will depend as much on diplomacy, trust, and shared resilience as it will on hard military capability.
We also need to recognise the full range of strategic risks we face. It is no longer just about the actions of hostile states, but about the escalating impacts of climate change, the risk of new pandemics, economic shocks, food insecurity, and ultimately the threat of ecosystem — and societal — collapse.
That is why cutting international aid to fund increased military spending is so short-sighted.
As a major former colonial power, we have a historic responsibility to address past injustices and build more equal and respectful relationships today.
Similarly, cutting energy and transport investment to fund £15 billion of additional arms spending — as will be set out in the government’s forthcoming Defence Investment Plan — reflects the wrong political priorities.
Why are we downgrading climate action at a moment when reaching net zero has never been more urgent?
Telling young people who are not in work, education or training to consider joining the armed forces speaks to a deeply dysfunctional society — one that risks sending working-class young people from communities like mine to die, rather than addressing the systemic failures that deny them opportunity.
Worryingly, we are seeing little sign of change from Andy Burnham, who is often presented as part of Labour’s softer wing. Last week, he was unable to say whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide, stating, “I can’t judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester.”
It feels like continuity Starmer: the same positioning, backed by the same political machinery, defended with the same hollow and cowardly lines.
A Labour facelift will not deliver the change this country needs. Britain must take a fundamentally different approach to security — one grounded in peace, justice and co-operation, rather than escalation and militarism.
Source: Morning Star