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Exeter anti-war protest attracts small group

"We were right last time" claim protestors

It attracted nowhere near the number of protesters campaigning to be given a vote on the UK's terms of withdrawal from the European Union last month, nor even the people on the opposite side of the street campaigning for people not to be given such a vote, but Monday night's protest about last weekend's western bombing of chemical weapons targets in Syria attracted people just as passionate.

Numbers were in their tens, rather than thousands.  But Exeter's Stop the War group expected that. They didn't generate huge crowds for the 2003 protest about the second Gulf war - and, according to spokesperson Richard Bradbury, ended up taking 60 coach loads of people to a London rally attracting two million campaigners.

Stop the War believes that the UK's action, in conjunction with its partners in the US and France, will exacerbate the situation in Syria, the wider Middle East and lead to greater dangers in the west. In the past six years, as President Assad has flattened cities and launched chemical weapons and barrel bombs, western estimates are that half a million people in Syria have been killed, five million have fled as refugees into Europe and the Middle East, and another six million have been displaced within the country. The House of Commons voted in 2013 and 2015 against military action. Controversially, the bombing of alleged chemical weapons sites in the early hours of Saturday morning wasn't debated by parliament. 

Mr Bradbury says British policy is inconsistent. The UK has launched an attacked against Syria, he says, but has done nothing in the Yemen where "the situation is just as bad". However, he does not applaud the inaction in the Yemen either. Instead "The government should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia," he says. Asked what Exeter's Stop the War proposes in response to the Syrian government poisoning its people, Mr Bradbury says: "It's a very complex question."

Writing in the Guardian on Monday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says that British people don't want a bombing campaign from their government. "Now is the moment for moral and political leadership, not knee-jerk military responses."

Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw (Labour), East Devon's Sir Hugo Swire, Central Devon's Mel Stride, Newton Abbot's Anne-Marie Morris, Torbay's Kevin Foster, and South West Devon's Gary Streeter (all Conservative) have posted their support for military action on social media.

Mr Bradshaw spoke in the debate in the House of Commons on Monday, saying the UK is "absolutely right" in taking action against President Assad's regime.

 

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