On Saturday September 6 the Stop the War Coalition held a pre-term national student meeting at Birkbeck College in London to try to rally the troops ahead of the upcoming freshers’ fairs, which will soon take place at universities across the UK.

Though I forgot to do a head count, I thought the turnout for this meeting was actually quite good, especially when one considers the relative state of the anti-war movement outside the colleges. The attendance was however, no doubt, helped by the fact that Socialist Worker Student Society members held a national pre-term meeting of their own earlier on in the same building. Unsurprisingly its members made up the bulk of those present.

The first part of the meeting was a straightforward rally with three top-table speakers: Tony Benn, George Solomou and Lindsey German. All three gave speeches so tired and old that it is a wonder the audience were not all asleep by the end of it all. We were taken through all of the old arguments that we have heard repeatedly at this type of event since Iraq was invaded – but with an obviously declining enthusiasm. Those that could be bothered to listen would have heard that: the war was based on lies; that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; that the US planned to go into Iraq before 9/11; that the war was for oil; and that the war was illegal. The only new issues of any significance that were raised were the conflict between Georgia and Russia, and the US elections.

On the question of Georgia both leading Socialist Workers Party member Lindsey German and the Labour left’s Tony Benn pretty straightforwardly sided with Russia in this conflict. Most of their criticism of “Nato expansionism” and “provocations”, as well as Georgia’s close relationship with US imperialism (not least in being a major supplier of troops to staff the occupation of Iraq, up until the conflict with Russia), was absolutely correct. But completely left out of their analysis was any consideration of the role of Putin and Medvedev in all of this.

Russia’s main motive in this conflict is to fight to maintain its own influence in the area. Both sides are using South Ossetia as a pawn. Socialists (which both Benn and German claim to be) have no interest in siding with Russia in this conflict, regardless of the fact that in strategic terms US imperialism is the main enemy of the global working class. Unlike those in the SWP who are hooked on the idea that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’, we stand for independent working class politics.

While Lindsey German was correct to refuse to side with the Democrats against the Republicans in the US elections and criticise Obama’s threats towards Iran, she felt that his success so far was an expression of a strong anti-war sentiment in the US and commented: “I guess most people here would prefer an Obama win.” She was conceding far too much to those who have illusions in Obama when she said that the reason he will not be able to bring change is because he will be a “prisoner” of the establishment figures around him – not because of his own politics. Unsurprisingly she made absolutely no mention of the necessity for independent working class political representation in the US. Nor did she mention Ralph Nader, about whom the SWP has got ever so excited in the past.

What was most notably missing from the whole event – not just the rally, but also the “discussion on strategy” – was any serious … discussion of strategy. How do we “stop the war”? Why are wars inevitable under the current system? What are imperialism and anti-imperialism? What forces have an interest in stopping war? None of these questions was seriously addressed.

Tony Benn started his speech by making two general comments about how “change” takes place in society. He correctly identified the fact that gains are not handed down to us by benign or benevolent rulers, but have to be won: “All progress is made by people who get together to change things,” he said. But he was not able to identify why this is the case, or which “people” getting together can win progressive change, except to say that “all progress is made by single-issue groups”. Really?

He started by giving the example of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, but then went on to make reference to the Chartists. Now, many people will try and simplify the Chartists’ struggle as one for the vote alone, but in reality – and Tony Benn should well know this – they had a much more radical and rounded programme for fundamental change across society. Thankfully he did not try to say the Bolsheviks were a single-issue group. All sorts of movements can win progressive change, but only political parties can offer a comprehensive programme for lasting change and then match that with the organisation to put it into practice.

Benn then went on to say how great the STWC was because it was able to appeal to such a broad section of society and even have speakers such as Tory MP Michael Ancram. Whilst many in the audience must have cringed at this example, Lindsey German was clearly in agreement. This attitude was only made worse by the fact that Benn not only wanted to allow space in the anti-war movement for pro-imperialist Tories, but he also wanted an ideological truce: “I’m not trying to persuade people to adopt my view,” he said. Well, why bother speaking at meetings?

George Solomou is an ex-soldier involved with Military Families Against the War. He spoke mainly about why we should be opposing army recruitment, in particular through the Officer Training Corps, in the universities. But his arguments against war were entirely pacifistic and legalistic. It is fundamentally important that the anti-war movement does win soldiers to its ranks, so when soldiers, ex-soldiers and their families get involved, we should celebrate that fact. But this does not mean that we should not seek to break them from legalism or any other wrong ideas they may hold. When speakers such as George hope that the likes of Bush and Blair will face charges in The Hague, it should be axiomatic that those on the platform who claim to be revolutionary socialists explain why we should have no faith in international law and bourgeois courts. But SWP speakers never do this, as their own operative politics is hardly any different.

Instead of posing the need for proletarian internationalism, comrade German told us the way forward was to “keep the movement going” – what a high aspiration! – and that we must mobilise for the next march on September 20, plus do what we can to “dent the price of defence shares”.

Ben Lewis of Communist Students and Hands Off the People of Iran managed to get called to speak in the all too brief question session which followed the rally. He argued that the lies spread about Hopi in order to justify its exclusion from the STWC one year ago had been proved false. Hopi has a proud record of principled opposition to imperialism and is winning support, not least from the PCS and Aslef unions, in the wider working class movement. Considering all this, Ben asked whether Lindsey now felt that Hopi should to affiliate to the STWC – a movement so professedly broad it welcomed Tories.

Both comrade German and Dominic Kavakeb (a leading SWP student of Iranian descent and Campaign Iran activist) responded to Ben’s question about Hopi’s exclusion. Kavakeb spoke immediately after comrade Lewis and, while he did not specifically defend Hopi’s exclusion, he did lay out some of the political differences he had with the campaign. He admitted there are “human rights issues” in Iran, but “we are not Amnesty: we are the Stop the War Coalition”. He said: “I know the Iranian people, and they are good, and they will make the changes they need to”. In fact he had spoken to political prisoners in Iran and they do not want our support: they just want us to oppose our government’s war threats.

Hopi agrees that the main task is to oppose the imperialist war threats, but whether or not comrade Kavakeb’s contacts want it, there are anti-imperialist socialists who are demanding our solidarity. One such activist is Anooshe Azadbar, who was arrested in connection with the Student Day protests in Tehran last December. She is now facing serious charges and needs all the support we can give her. She was elected as honorary vice-president of the National Union of Students earlier this year, but will the STWC lift a finger to help her?

Whereas Lindsey German could say that it was important for the STWC to defend civil liberties in Britain, she was clearly adopting a nationalist stance on this question. The STWC must not take a position on these issues in Iran, she said. Interestingly her argument on this score was not based on any real political analysis, but she said criticism of regimes like those of Saddam or the clerics in Iran would not be popular and it would ensure our marches were always small.

Of course, she was all too aware that none of these differences she had with Hopi actually justified refusing the group’s affiliation request. So in order to clinch the argument she threw in the complete fabrication: “Hopi was set up to replace the Stop the War Coalition.”

As I have said, the advertised “discussion on strategy” which formed the last part of the meeting was absolutely nothing of the sort. It was more a bit of a back-slapping workshop, where people explained what activities they had been involved in last year and how they were going to do even more great things this term.

The STWC is all at sea and its leadership only seems interested in maintaining its own position and a pool from which to fish for recruits to their own various sect projects. In many ways its student wing seems no healthier. We in Communist Students are fighting to re-acquaint the student movement with the ideas of Marxism, not least in relation to questions of war, internationalism and solidarity.

This meeting was another example of both how necessary that fight is and of how far we have got to go.