Spot the Atlanticist posted by Meaders

"Euston, we have a problem..." left this account of the most recent Euston Manifesto meeting in a Tomb comments box. From the details provided, there seems no reason to doubt its accuracy:

The eighteen strong attendence at the Euston Group public meeting would have shamed even Bob Geldof (who managed to attract over double that number to his gig in Milan last weekend). Of those eighteen, one was an anti-war and anti-Euston Iraqi democrat, and another was yours truly. Of the remaining sixteen, only one was female.

The organisers were clearly hoping for a couple of hundred, as they had booked a large lecture theatre at Kings College in central London. Gary Kent from Labour Friends of Iraq told the audience that everywhere he had been to in Iraq people had come up to him and thanked him for the US and British liberation! A truly remarkable account that appeared to contradict all the available evidence. Kent later admitted that he had never set foot outside of Kurdistan.

Alan Johnson of Democratiya spoke quite movingly about the historic struggles of Iraqi communists and trade unionists against both Saddam Hussein and his then US imperialist sponsors. In answer to a question from the floor about why he was against imperialism then, but not against it today, Johnson said that following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the main emphasis of US foreign policy was now on "democracy promoting", and that they deserved critical support in this endevour.

The questioner responded by pointing out that at exactly the time the United States were planning their war on Iraq, they were actively sponsoring a coup against the hugely popular elected government of Venezuela. Johnson replied that the world was now complicated and that you could no longer meaningfully talk about Imperialism/Resistance.

I have to say that it was the least inspiring meeting I ever attended in my life, and believe me there's been some stiff competition. It wasn't only the pathetically small attendence that dampened the atmosphere, or the almost complete absence of women and ethnic minorities. The principal reason, I think, was the absence of any vision that went beyond supporting George Bush and attacking the left, and the almost pathological denial of the disaster that is Iraq. I left the meeting wondering why these people bother pretending to be on the left at all. They appear to have no base of support in society, nor any interesting or coherent ideas, and are largely a creation of the media.

According to this Guardian poll, 3% of the British public think Britain's foreign policy should be closer to the US. That's the Eustonites' constituency: appropriately, it just scrapes out of the margin of error. Anyone who genuinely thinks that the Left can be rebuilt in Britain separately from the anti-war movement is delusional to the point of absurdity.