A-Infos (en) UK, ACG: War drums (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A campaign is being waged against both 'hostile states' -Russia, China, Iran and 
North Korea- and the internal enemy, revolutionaries and environmental activists, 
the latter increasingly characterised as violent domestic extremists. ---- It can 
be seen in the rhetoric of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace who is pushing for a 
£10-11 billion increase in defence spending and attempting to further the myth 
that Britain is still a great power, when its armed forces are depleted and run 
down. He said that the UK would backfill for allies like Poland with British 
planes. Ahead of the meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels he called for 
the ramping up of production of ammunition by NATO members. ---- It can be seen 
in the words of Transport Secretary Richard Holden, referring to China as a 
'hostile state' when responding to the fake frenzy over Chinese weather balloons 
shot down over US territory.

It can be seen in the words of Liz Truss. Speaking at the Inter-Parliamentary 
Alliance on China Symposium in Tokyo she said world leaders should learn the 
lessons of not taking earlier and tougher action against Russia and rejected the 
"fatalism" of those who think "the rise of a totalitarian China is inevitable". 
She called for an "economic NATO", made up of the G7 and allies, ready to act 
against China. She went on to say "I would like to see a more developed Pacific 
defence alliance alongside even closer co-operation between NATO and our Pacific 
allies."

Earlier in January, the British government became the first Western state to 
promise advanced tanks to the Ukrainian military. This was a cynical move where 
just 14 Challenger 2 tanks were promised in order to pressurise the German 
government to give the green light to supplying Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks.

The Sunak government, like previous Tory administrations, is intent on supporting 
the USA and NATO in increasing the arming of Ukraine, calling for a dangerous 
escalation of the conflict rather than negotiation. The USA is determined to take 
on China, which it sees as THE rival rising world power. Russia is no longer a 
world power, but its alliance with China means that the US and its allies are 
testing the waters in how far they can go with confrontation. The British media 
have enthusiastically fallen in behind this plan, with front pages glorifying the 
Zelenskyy regime, reminiscent in their lauding of "gallant little Belgium" during 
World War One.

Let us be clear, we have no time for the corrupt, kleptocratic and authoritarian 
Putin regime, nor for Xi's equally repellent regime in China, or the foul regimes 
in North Korea, Iran and Syria.  For us, however, the main enemy is at home, it 
is the British state and the boss class and we should question the current 
drumming up of war fever. It does not benefit our class, the working class. 
Against it we should counterpose class struggle and anti-militarism and highlight 
the appalling role of the arms industries.

The Enemy Within

At the same time as the escalation of rhetoric against external enemies, the war 
against the enemy within is picking up speed. The war against the enemy within, 
utilised by Thatcher against the miners in 1984-5, restarted with a campaign 
begun in 2020 against environmental and animal rights activists. The then Home 
Secretary Priti Patel said "This government will not stand by and allow a small 
minority of ­selfish protesters to cause significant disruption." This has 
resulted in mass arrests of activists, the raiding of premises, and the labelling 
of groups like Extinction Rebellion and Animal Aid as domestic extremists.

Richard Walton, former head of counter-terror at the London Metropolitan Police, 
said, "The illegal blockading of motorways is environmental extremism, not legal 
protest .Environmental extremists using planned, illegal tactics of the 
blockading of main roads need to be dealt with as robustly as Islamist extremists."

A new weapon in this war against a domestic enemy has been the Public Order Bill, 
currently going through Parliament. This would further increase police powers to 
crush protest and dissent, and criminalise a wide range of behaviour. In 
addition, it would up the ante on trespass, up to now "not of itself a criminal 
offence" as the Crown Prosecution Service had to admit.

This would mean that the recent mass trespass on Dartmoor National Park, where 
the hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall owns 1, 620 hectares, could become a 
criminal act. Unlike in Scotland, Scandinavia, the Baltic states and other 
European countries, there is no "freedom to roam" in England and Wales.  In 
addition, protest occupations of various businesses, malls, etc could be deemed 
as criminal trespass by the police. These powers, ready to be used against groups 
like XR, Insulate Britain, and Just Stop Oil, could equally be used against 
strikers in the future, as well as against a whole range of radical groups and 
campaigns.

The ex-chairman of the Tory Party, Nadhim Zahawi,   recently accused NHS workers 
about to strike that they were helping Putin by threatening to raise inflation 
with their wage demands, claiming that one of the aims of the Russian leader was 
to increase inflation in the West. Earlier in June 2022, a senior Tory MP, Tobias 
Elwood, claimed that striking railway workers were acting as "Putin's friends".

Make no mistake, the war against the external enemy and the enemy within are 
closely linked.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2023/02/27/war-drums
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