LONDON, 28 September 2003 — Thousands demonstrated against the Iraq war in several European countries yesterday, including some of those supporting the US-led occupation, but the numbers paled compared to the massive demonstrations earlier this year.
The largest rally took place in London, where the police counted 10,000 demonstrators, but the organizers’ tally was 10 times higher. London’s high-profile mayor and Labour dissident Ken Livingstone was among the speakers. Protesters demanding the pullout of coalition troops from Iraq marched in central London, chanting “No More War” and “Bush and Blair have got to go.”
“War in Iraq — Illegal, Immoral and Illogical” read one banner as people of all ages strode out of Hyde Park and through the streets toward Trafalgar Square, banging drums and whistling.
In Paris, 3,000 people (8,000 according to organizers) took to the streets to protest US policy and voice strong support for the Palestinians, police said.
In Warsaw, about 100 demonstrators marched to protest US occupation of Iraq and call for Poland’s 2,400-strong contingent in the country to be brought home.
Some 3,000 demonstrators gathered in central Athens and another 500 in the eastern city of Salonika, the country’s second largest.
Finally in Istanbul, Turkey’s economic capital, close to 3,000 protested the occupation of neighboring Iraq and Israel’s policies against the Palestinians, the Anatolia news agency reported. An unspecified number of protesters also gathered in Ankara.
NATO member Turkey has yet to decide on whether to contribute soldiers to a stability force in Iraq, but the idea has attracted criticism from both the public and parliament — which has to approve the dispatch of Turkish soldiers abroad.
No incidents were reported at any of the demonstrations.
Meanwhile, half the British public believe Tony Blair should resign, according to a poll published yesterday, as the prime minister prepared for a difficult annual conference of his ruling Labour party.
In the Mori survey for the Financial Times business daily, people were asked whether they agreed with the statement that “it’s now time for Tony Blair to resign and hand over to someone else”. Fifty percent said they agreed, 39 percent said they disagreed, and 11 percent said they did not know.
Some 64 percent said they were dissatisfied with Blair’s performance, an all-time high, according to the FT, which said the results illustrated the extent to which he had lost public trust as a result of the Iraq war.
The failure of international inspectors to find weapons of mass destruction following the conflict and the suicide of British weapons expert David Kelly in July have plunged Blair into the worst crisis of his six-year tenure.
Government scientist Kelly was the source of claims reported by the BBC in May that Britain embellished its case for war on Iraq in a government dossier published a year ago.
The Financial Times poll of nearly 2,000 adults, conducted between Sept. 11 and 16, showed that Labour had a nine-point lead over the opposition Conservatives.
When the same voters are asked how they would vote if finance minister Gordon Brown were Labour leader, the party’s lead rose from nine points to 15 points. A YouGov poll for right-wing Daily Telegraph found the Conservatives had overtaken Labour.
It put the Tories on 32 percent, Labour on 31, and the Liberal Democrats, the second biggest opposition party, on 30.
At his party’s annual gathering, which opens today in Bournemouth, on England’s south coast, Blair faces pressure over his staunch backing for the United States in its March invasion of Iraq, as well as hostility over his push to reform Britain’s public sector.
On the eve of his 10th conference as party leader, a survey by the left-wing Guardian daily of 108 backbench Labour MPs — lawmakers who do not hold positions in government — found just under a quarter would like Blair to quit immediately.
A similar proportion wanted a “peaceful transition” in the leadership either before or after the next general election, due by 2006. Only just over a quarter offered unconditional support. Labour has 409 MPs, 262 of whom are backbenchers.
The survey came as the Labour leadership embarked on an intensive round of negotiations to minimize dissent at this year’s conference, which according to the Guardian was likely to be one of the bloodiest since Blair was elected leader in 1994.
The paper said left-wingers would attempt to force a ballot on the Iraq war despite the big unions, which command half the vote, agreeing to concentrate their fire on domestic policies such as hospitals, employment rights and pensions.
