Ten Years On Peace Group Says 'No More Wars'

Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group has been marking the tenth anniversary of Britain's biggest ever anti-war demonstration which was held in London on Saturday 15 February 2003 . At their stall in Yorkshire Street on Saturday morning (16 February 2013), they reminded Rochdale's shoppers that ten years ago they had joined between one and two million people in London and millions more around the world in an effort to stop George Bush's and Tony Blair’s plans to invade Iraq.

Their leaflet told people that "Since NATO’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, more than 600 British troops have been killed in pointless foreign wars." and that "These same wars have killed and injured tens of thousands of civilians— men, women and children.", adding that "Now, in 2013, NATO’s disastrous war in Afghanistan still takes lives on a daily basis; British troops are bound for Mali  and drones are regularly taking the lives of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan." They said that "It is time to bring the troops home and to tell the government that we want no more of their wars."

The Peace Group asked people to join them in urging MPs Jim Dobbin and Simon Danczuk to support Early Day Motion 1055 in Parliament and collected more than 100 signatures in support of calls to express deep regret "that the war went ahead and that the will of the people was ignored" and for the view that "any decision to engage in armed conflict should be subject to prior approval via a free vote in Parliament rather than relying on prerogative power."

Partricia Gilligan who was in London on Saturday 15 February 2003 and campaigning again in Yorkshire Street on Saturday 16 February 2013, said,


"In 2003, we were packed so tightly in the streets that we could not move. It was obvious that this was a huge demonstration and there was a great sense of solidarity and purpose. We knew that regardless of whether we were two million people or one million people, we represented the overwhelming view of ordinary people in Britain. We rejected Bush and Blair's war. There was no need to invade Iraq and when the invasion took place, I felt that the politicians had betrayed me. A country was going to be destroyed and thousands of innocent children, women and men would be killed. Remembering Iraq reminds us of the futility and horror of war. It should make us more determined than ever to say no to war.”

Peace Group highlight risks from nuclear waste in North West England

On Wednesday 6 February 2013, Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group discussed  the growing crisis surrounding nuclear power and nuclear waste in the United Kingdom and especially in North West England. They called for the decommissioning of all existing nuclear power stations and the immediate scrapping of plans to build any more.

Philip Gilligan said: "The government plans to build more nuclear power stations, when the existing ones are already polluting our planet and deforming our children.
"Those promoting nuclear power don't want us to know the dangerous truth. They tell us that nuclear power is "safe", but as the disasters at Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima have all shown us, this is not the case. They tell us that nuclear power is "clean”, but the nuclear industry produces dirty radioactive waste that remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.
"Now MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have told us that the 'enormous' legacy of nuclear waste at Sellafield has been allowed to build up, with no indication of when the cost will stop rising.
"The PAC said that Sellafield already costs the public around £1.6 billion per year and its chairwoman, Margaret Hodge MP says that a solution to the problem of long-term storage of nuclear waste is as far away as ever following the decision by leaders of Cumbria County Council to reject plans for an underground dump in the Lake District.

"Successive governments have failed to find any solution to the thousands of tons of nuclear waste that has been allowed to build up on the notoriously accident-prone sites around the often renamed nuclear power sites in Cumbria, while the current government’s plans to build more nuclear power stations will produce more nuclear waste.

"This hazardous and very long-lasting material is taken by train from places like Sizewell in the South East of England up the west coast mainline to be dumped 'temporarily' above ground at Sellafield. It is time to stop this dangerous and expensive madness.”