Rai, Milan

Rai, Milan

Milan Rai

1 October 2022Feature

A tribute to Barbara Ehrenreich (26 August 1941 – 1 September 2022)

When I came into the peace movement as a teenager, back in the time of the dinosaurs, I somehow picked up a Very Wrong Idea. I came to believe that We (peace people) were completely different from, and so much better than, Them (war-supporters). We were more intelligent, more noble, better-informed. They... well, they were different.

In my case, picking up this belief flew in the face of my own experience, if I had only had eyes to see. I grew up in a…

1 October 2022Comment

A failing Prime Minister may be tempted to rally support around a military crusade

‘I did not come into politics to be a member of the Kamikaze Pilots’ Association.’

Yes, that is a Tory MP responding to the disastrous political impact of an unpopular and destabilising budget announcement from a Conservative government.

No, it’s not from September 2022.

It’s from March 1981.

Those are the words of liberal Conservative MP Cyril Townsend, making clear his opposition to chancellor Geoffrey Howe’s economy-shrinking, austerity budget. Inflation was…

1 October 2022Comment

The war in Ukraine is deepening the grave threat to future generations, argues Milan Rai

Every time the US has increased its military support for Ukraine, Russia has responded by escalating in some way.

We’re approaching a very dangerous point now, where a Russian nuclear attack starts to become a real possibility (see p7), with catastrophic consequences not just for Ukraine, but almost certainly for the world.

However, as Noam Chomsky recently pointed out to Truthout: ‘The impact of the war goes far beyond: to the millions facing starvation with the…

1 October 2022News

Can negotiations succeed despite Russian annexations?

Despite his warlike words, and the enormous brutality of his invasion forces, Russian president Vladimir Putin has also signalled that he wants negotiations with Ukraine to end the war.

Britain and the US must end their anti-negotiations position (see PN 2661).

Putin put pro-negotiations language into both his 21 and 30 September speeches, which…

1 October 2022Feature

Did you know that First Use is government policy?

Nuclear disarmament campaigns have often focused on hardware, on warheads and missiles and submarines.

Nuclear doctrine, or how governments plan to use their nuclear weapons, have had a lot less attention.

This is a pity because there are a lot of easy wins available for the peace movement on doctrine. (Also, the strength of the movement in the 1980s was as much to do with doctrine as it was to do with hardware, I would argue.)

As I noted last issue, an…

1 October 2022Feature

Is Putin copying 1990s British nuclear policy?

‘If the choice for Russia is fighting a losing war, and losing badly and Putin falling, or some kind of nuclear demonstration, I wouldn’t bet that they wouldn’t go for the nuclear demonstration.’ That was Tony Brenton, a former UK ambassador to Russia, talking to Reuters in August.

Western experts have explained some of the ‘demonstration’ options for Putin, if he does use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, detonating a single ‘low-yield’ warhead in a way that does not kill anyone: ‘It could…

2 August 2022Comment

Johnson was an international criminal, not just a liar, argues Milan Rai

All year, it has been infuriating to watch the debate about Boris Johnson as pressure built up against the British prime minister until he was finally forced from office on 7 July by his own party – which believed he would damage its chances of winning the next election.

Johnson was sacked by the Conservatives for his personal weaknesses, such as dishonesty and irresponsibility. This was what the media also focused on. Near the liberal extreme, the Guardian editorial on his…

2 August 2022Comment

Milan Rai remembers a campaigner who was 'human decency turned into a human being'

There are activists who are respected or admired, and there are activists who are loved. Bruce was loved, he was beloved.

Bruce Kent was human decency turned into a human being.

For people of my generation, who came of age in the 1980s, Bruce was a beacon of sanity in a terrifying world. He was the voice of the peace movement: direct, honest and completely fearless.

He has continued to be that beacon of sanity and common sense.

Pat Gaffney, one of Bruce’s close…

1 August 2022News

How Johnson and Truss have helped to undermine diplomacy and prolong the war in Ukraine

As Noam Chomsky has repeatedly pointed out since February: ‘our prime concern should be to think through carefully what we can do to bring the criminal Russian invasion to a quick end and to save the Ukrainian victims from more horrors’ (PN 2660).

This must mean an immediate ceasefire and a quick peace agreement along the lines nearly agreed at the end of March.

The reality is that this brutal and dangerous war will end in one of three ways: the two sides will…

1 August 2022News

RMT leader calls for general strike if new PM pursues anti-union plans

There should be a general strike if Tory MP Liz Truss becomes prime minister on 5 September and pursues the harsh anti-union policies she has announced recently.

That’s the view of Mick Lynch, secretary general of the RMT rail union, who says: ‘Truss is proposing to make effective trade unionism illegal in Britain and to rob working people of a key democratic right. If these proposals become law, there will be the biggest resistance mounted by the entire trade union movement,…

1 August 2022Feature

At least a fifth of the UK population has always been unilateralist

Of the many causes that Bruce Kent fought for, the one he is most identified with is unilateral nuclear disarmament. Bruce was general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) from 1980 to 1985, and CND chair from 1987 to 1990. CND’s core demand is for unilateral nuclear disarmament – for the UK government to dismantle all its nuclear weapons immediately, whether or not other countries also disarm.

1 August 2022Feature

Our campaign to Ban Nuclear Threats continues...

If you’re a Western disarmament group, and you choose not to mention or engage with the long history of Western nuclear threats against non-nuclear weapon states, I think that’s a problem, morally, politically and in terms of strategy – but it’s kind of business as usual.

If you’re a Western disarmament group, and you choose to engage with the threatened use of nuclear weapons in international crisis situations, but you choose to talk only about nuclear threats issued by enemies of…

20 June 2022Blog

In this online telling of the tale, over twice as long as the article we printed in PN 2660, we hear from the activists behind the landmark legal ruling that deliberately obstructive protest can be legal.

Two slogan-covered boxes are bundled out of a van in East London. People lie down on the road next to the boxes.

Within seconds, the police are there.

So are the activists’ support team and other protesters.

DSEI, one of the biggest arms fairs in the world, is being set up in the nearby ExCeL Centre.

Within minutes, the four people lying in the road – Chris Cole, Henrietta Cullinan, Jo Frew and Nora Ziegler – have been arrested.

*

This small action,…

1 June 2022Comment

Recent events confirm that peace activism is the real counter-terrorism, argues Milan Rai

This may be a little difficult to believe. In the latest terror trial in the UK, the defendant put forward the kind of legal argument that we often see in peace movement nonviolent direct action cases: he was trying to prevent a greater crime... with his crime.

Since the 7/7 atrocities in London on 7 July 2005, there has been a string of terror attacks in the UK inspired by al-Qa’eda and/or Islamic State.

These attacks tend to have three features in common that aren’t often…

1 June 2022News

The British government must support Ukrainian neutrality

The outlines for a peace deal in Ukraine have been clear for weeks, as US activist and author Noam Chomsky points out in this issue (see pp 11 – 13).

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine made a solid peace proposal at the end of March which could be built upon.

It is not enough simply to appeal for a ceasefire. Western peace movements should be pressing their governments to actively voice their support for peace negotiations.

Ukraine specialist Anatol Lieven wrote on…