Crowds of thousands marched against the assault on Iran (Pic: Guy Smallman)
Tens of thousands of marchers raged through London on Saturday to oppose the murderous assault on Iran by the United States and Israel.
A week into the war, there were huge explosions across Iran as Israel’s military announced a “broad-scale wave of strikes”. The escalating conflict is bringing chaos and bloodshed across the region.
Protester Atefeh told Socialist Worker, “I’m Iranian and I’m 100 percent against this”.
She said, “There are some Iranians advocating for this. But they don’t represent us. We need to make sure our voices are louder than them.
“They think they can just overthrow Iran, we are going to stand against that.”
On the first day of the assault, US-Israeli missile strikes killed 165 schoolgirls in Minab, southern Iran. Julie told Socialist Worker, “I don’t know how grown men can murder children. It’s just awful. I don’t think many people in Britain want a war.”
Darius was at the protest with a cardboard sign saying, “Women, life, freedom”, the slogan of the protests in Iran during 2022 after Mahsa Amini’s murder by the police.
He told Socialist Worker, “I have family in Iran. I support the people of Iran. I don’t want them to be under an oppressive regime. But I don’t want them to be bombed into the ground by Israel and the Americans either.
“US imperialism does not help Iranians. They would seek to install a puppet regime and plunder Iran’s oil and gas. If the Israelis get their way they would fragment Iran into a number of failed states.
“I’m ashamed of the British government and Keir Starmer’s complicity with what is happening in Iran”, he added.
Faz, an Iranian living in London, explained, “I’m against the war and the Iranian regime. That’s why I’m here.”
He argued that “the only result” of the war “is to benefit the powers of imperialism and the destruction of normal life. People aren’t winners in any war.”
He added, “The regime is despotic. People don’t have basic normal life in Iran. Whether it is daily rations of food, water or basic political freedoms.”
Mike, an NEU union member, told Socialist Worker, “Hooligans are making callous decisions about the world, about which countries are next in terms of expanding the global US empire, with no regard for ordinary people on the ground. That is a time for us to stand up and say you don’t speak for us.”
He said that trade unions are “absolutely crucial” to the anti-war movement.
The sixth form college teacher said, “We need to be out here in full force. The people who pay the greatest price are usually the workers when they see high energy bills and inflation. The trade unions should be here to stand up to the war criminals that we have in the world.”
Sophie Bolt, the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament told Socialist Worker the war was built on lies about nuclear weapons.
“There is overwhelming evidence Iran has no nuclear bomb and no intention of building one and has been negotiating in good faith.
“Both Israel and the US have sabotaged the nuclear talks. They were never concerned about a nuclear threat, it was always about regime change”, she said.
She added that the nuclear armed genocidal regime of Israel is “armed to the hilt and militarily supported in its illegal attack on Iran.”
Crowds packed into the streets outside the US embassy in Vauxhall, south London.
Maryam Eslamdoust, the TSSA union general secretary, told the rally, “I’m here not just as a British trade union leader but as an Iranian woman grieving for my homeland.”
She said, “Our hearts cannot conceive what we are supposed to do when the US and Israel bomb a school and kill hundreds of children.”
She called on the government to “focus on welfare, not warfare—keep our country out of this conflict”.
Zarah Sultana, MP from Your Party, said, “I was nine years old when the last Labour government followed the US into an illegal war in the Middle East.”
When the Iraq war happened in the 2000s, “I was old enough to see millions of people march through this country to not take us into war.
“Back then we were told Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, that war would bring peace and democracy.
“Today we are being asked to believe another set of lies. The US and Israel launched a war of aggression on Iran in a region scarred by conflict. This is illegal and unprovoked.”
Stop the War convenor Lindsey German told the rally, “Every war the US has engaged in for the past 25 years they claim they have done it to liberate women. That is what they say with Iran.
“But the first thing they did was kill 165 young girls in the south of Iran. We should never believe their lies.”
She added, “If we stopped genocide in Gaza we wouldn’t see the attack on Iran now. Trump and Neyanyahu were emboldened.”
Lindsey slammed the British state’s support for the war. She explained that US B1 bombers are arriving at the RAF Fairford air base in Gloucestershire to be used against Iran.
She said, “Regime change begins at home. Keir Starmer should be out of Downing Street.”
Most major trade unions in Britain are opposed to the war. Those workers could refuse to be party to war crimes. In the belly of the imperialist beast, the anti-war movement could mobilise at the arms factories and air bases to say no to another war.
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