Andrew Murray is Chair of the “Stop the War Coalition” (StWC). So of course he is fond of war. Provided it is jihad.
This puts him right in line with his stopper comrades Chris Nineham and John Rees – this is the cause, proudly proclaimed, not a deviation.
Here he is at a “No to NATO” rally in Strasbourg in 2009. Defeat NATO! Resist!
But let us not forget that the victims of NATO are not in Europe. They are in the Middle East. They are in South Asia. And our common humanity and our desire to defeat NATO demands that we extend the hand of sympathy and solidarity to those who are suffering from NATO’s policy of aggression and imperialism, and not just to those who are suffering but those who are exercising their right to resist that policy.
Murray goes on to add a flourish at the end in appallingly bad French. “With the resistance, against imperialism!”
There’s always more with this lot. In this talk from 2013, Murray presents the familiar stoppers and jihadis as a team line:
If the British troops are now out of Iraq, having committed crimes, bestial crimes only now coming to light, of course that is mainly to do with the resistance of the Iraqi people. But it’s also to do with the strength of our movement to demand that they withdraw.
Or try this speech in 2011. The glittering prize for stoppers is British defeat.
We will stand with you until your countries are free and British imperialism is defeated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and all over the world.
Fanatical Israel hatred is another must for stoppers. At this London rally Murray does his bit, shouting for the “heroic Palestinian people in Gaza” (he clearly means Hamas) and telling the Israeli embassy in London and the Israeli government “you are digging your own grave”. Charming!
He then says it is an “illusion” that Histadrut is “a proper trade union”. Boycotts even for his labour comrades, for they are Israeli, so they are beyond the pale. The baying mob loves it.
Really, even calling the StWC “anti-West”, as some finally do these days, is too mild. What they actually are is “pro-war”. The only criterion is that the fighters must be jihadis. If the jihadis’ targets are British soldiers, all the better.
