The President vs. the pro-tyrant Left

Michael Gove declares in The Times (it is online, but the link eludes me for the moment) his intention of attending the protests against President Bush's state visit:

Even among the crowds it should be easy to spot me. I know there will be a lot of other guys in T-shirts and badges — but perhaps not those I am planning to wear: the T-shirt with the American flag on it, above the simple legend “These Colors Don’t Run”. And the little pin proclaiming “Bush-Cheney — Four More Years!” It will be interesting to see what the crowd make of my presence.

And mine, because I'll be there too. I'll be wearing a business suit rather than a T-shirt, as a mark of respect for the President's office, and shall bear merely the flags of our two countries rather than a political badge (it is a state visit, after all). I shall feel nonetheless a sense of public service in expressing support for the transatlantic alliance and gratitude for the burdens voluntarily assumed by the United States in fighting our common totalitarian enemies.

I shall also join Gove in asking a particularly pertinent question of those protesting:

I would like first to ask everyone at these rallies if they are happy attending events organised by apologists for tyranny. The Stop the War Coalition is chaired by a man called Andrew Murray, now communications officer for the rail union Aslef. Andrew, who used to work for the Soviet Novosti press agency, sits on the politburo of the Communist Party of Britain and wrote an article in the Morning Star a couple of years ago celebrating the 120th anniversary of Stalin’s birth. Working alongside him in the Coalition is another indefatigable protester with a soft spot for Uncle Joe, the former Labour MP George Galloway, who once claimed that the collapse of Soviet Communism was the saddest event of his life.

Except that Gove is too generous. Murray is not merely an apologist for tyranny, he is a declared supporter of it. In his political report to the executive of the Communist Party of Britain in March this year, Murray stated:

Our Party has already made its basic position of solidarity with People[']s Korea clear.

He also, incidentally, observed:

We need now to entrench the Party in the mass anti-war movement at every level.

The principal actors in the Stop the War Coalition are in fact overwhelmingly drawn from the Socialist Workers' Party and the nominally broader organisation it controls, the Socialist Alliance. Two members of the SWP's politburo, John Rees and Lindsey German (who is the Coalition's 'convenor') are the driving forces of the Coalition along with Murray. The explicit position of the SWP during the war was to support a military victory for Baathist totalitarianism over Britain and America. As party ideologue Paul McGarr asserted in Socialist Worker, 23 March:

The best response to war would be protests across the globe which make it impossible for Bush and Blair to continue. But while war lasts by far the lesser evil would be reverses, or defeat, for the US and British forces. That may be unlikely, given the overwhelming military superiority they enjoy. But it would be the best outcome in military terms.

I have observed before, and take the opportunity of recalling again, that one of the main speakers at the 15 February Hyde Park rally of the Stop the War Coalition, a front organisation for a party dedicated to the overthrow of parliamentary democracy and to military victory for Saddam Hussein, was Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats. To this day, the Liberal Democrats continue to promote the Coalition - I repeat: a front organisation for a totalitarian and antisemitic party of the Fascist Left - on their web sites.

With Bush and Blair, or with the pro-tyrant Left and those who speak from their platforms? I know where I stand.