The motion below was passed by the Socialist Labour Network (SLN) at its All-Members Meeting (AMM) on 9th June. The meeting was smaller than usual, about half the size of the normal run of members meetings. That is likely a seasonal anomaly however, as the SLN still has the loyalty of a broad spectrum of the most militant ex-Labour members who were originally inspired by Corbyn’s leadership. The SLN is the product of the unification of two militant organisations of the Labour left which came together during the period of the Blairite and allied Zionist witchhunt: Labour Against the Witchhunt, and Labour in Exile Network. Both were proscribed by Kier Starmer, as is the unified SLN.
The adoption of this policy is a major shift to the left by the SLN. We in the Consistent Democrats have fought for the SLN to adopt such a principled policy for the whole period of the Special Military Operation. In April last year a third-camp motion was hurriedly passed that equated Russia with NATO, though to its credit it did also call for self-determination for the Donbass people. We opposed that at the time and attempted to correct that in July: a similar motion was then defeated by around 2 to 1 in formal votes. But at the same time, there were so many abstentions that it was obvious that many SLN members were uneasy with the third camp policy. So, it was not a surprise that this motion went through near-unanimously just now.
This is also a symptom of a real shift to the left on this war, as the real Western objective and support for Nazism is being exposed despite the massive media lying campaign. The original version of this motion called for endorsement of No2NATO, No2War (N2N2W). But it fell off the agenda at the April AMM due to lack of time, and the subsequent major error by the Galloway/Workers Party leadership of N2NN2W in blocking with the Nazi David Clews (and then doubling down against criticism of this) meant it had to be amended to take account of this change. That delay was perhaps fortuitous as it turned out.
To defeat the current imperialist war drive and proxy war against Russia, we must work towards creating an anti-war movement that is principled, anti-fascist and anti-imperialist, and stands against the drive of the far-right Maidan regime in Kiev to destroy and ethnically cleanse the Russian speaking population of what was the South-East part of Ukraine (Donbass). We must stand with the Donbass people. The arming of Ukrainian forces with heavy NATO weaponry is aimed to kill Russian-speakers, including the civilian population (in fact Donbass inhabitants). Warmonger Republican US Senator Lindsay Graham, supporting Biden’s war policy, recently boasted that this was the “best money [the US] ever spent”.
Although Stop the War condemns the US and NATO, it also condemns Russia. This is to condemn the Russian assistance of the people of Donbass to resist ethnic cleansing and to avoid being forced into NATO. We need something better and more principled than this. We cannot endorse No2NATO, No2War as its current public alliance with a part of the far right contradicts the whole notion of a struggle against fascism and imperialism.
Proposer: Ian Donovan
Seconder: Paul Collins.
(16 in favour, 3 absentions, 0 against)
