Video

Manchester, England. 24th June 2007. As Tony Blair hands over to Gordon Brown at an Emergency Labour Party Conference in Manchester, thousands of anti-war protesters march past the conference venue at the Bridgewater Hall. Blair was forced to announce his resignation after the uproar over his failure to call for a ceasefire in Lebanon last year. Six junior Ministers resigned from his government in protest, with the possibility of more to follow if he did not announce his intention to stand aside before the end of the present Parliamentary term. The unrelenting pressure from the anti-war movement thus forced Blair out of office--effectively a self-imposed impeachment. This clip shows some of the more memorable scenes from the demonstration and rally. It begins with a "naming of the dead". The names of 100 dead people from all sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars are read out. At the end, Stop the War Coalition chair, Andrew Murray, says that it would take 24 hours a day from now until the beginning of October to read the names of all the dead from these wars. Other scenes show lively singing and chanting by School Students Against the War. The leaders of the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) and Military Families Against War (MFAW) hand a letter addressed to Gordon Brown to a Labour Party official outside the conference venue. This calls for a radical change of policy and an immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. MFAW leader, Rose Gentle, and StWC national chair, Andrew Murray, are seen handing over the letter. Rose Gentle takes the opportunity to request a meeting with Gordon Brown on behalf of the Military Families. Blair had consistently refused to see them. The answer is evasive and non-commital. The clip ends with a shot of John Rees reminding us that it was the anti-war movement that drove Blair from office after he failed to call for a ceasefire in the attack on Lebanon last year. This was his "war too far" he said. This video clip can be seen and downloaded in other video formats, including DVD quality (MPEG2), at: http://www.archive.org/details/stwc_manc_demo_24jun2007