Gordon Brown at Chilcot Inquiry

by James McDonald

UAL students were amongst anti-war campaigners gathered outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre on Friday to protest against Gordon Brown's involvement in the war in Iraq.

Members of the Stop The War Coalition took to the streets with placards on Friday morning as Brown arrived for Iraq Inquiry, part of Lord Chilcot's continuing investigation.

Despite a relatively low turnout, chants of “Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation” and “Gordon Brown – to the Hague” could be heard from protesters who feel Brown should be answerable to the international criminal courts in the Netherlands.

A 20-year-old student from Reading who did not want to give his name, said: “I came here today because Gordon Brown is complicit in war crimes and is trying to whitewash over it with the Chilcot Inquiry, when really it should be a criminal inquiry at the Hague. He funded the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan and we've lost two million innocent lives since.”

Brown, who was Chancellor when Iraq was invaded in 2003, was greeted by a man dressed as the grim reaper displaying a war chest and another man wearing a Gordon Brown mask, holding aloft a blood-stained cheque for £8.5 billion - representing the money spent by the government on the war in Iraq.

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North and one of the founders of the Stop The War Coalition was present and addressed the crowd, closing with the words: “Shame on this war and shame on this government.”