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CHRIS YOUNG/PA
HOME FRONT:
Tony Blair found stiff opposition from his own party both in Parliament and outside
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Fighting The Tide |
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Tony Blair and other pro-U.S. leaders in Europe still haven't convinced their people to support a war
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By JAMES GRAFF | PARIS
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Tony Blair had never taken such a beating. Last week the British Prime Minister suffered the biggest back-bench defection of any government of the past century. While previous Prime Ministers, such as Anthony Eden and Neville Chamberlain, lost their jobs over military actions that went badly, Blair got bludgeoned for a war that hasn't yet begun.
When an antigovernment motion stating that the case for war against Saddam Hussein is "as yet unproven" was supported by 121 Labour Members of Parliament — nearly a third of Blair's total parliamentary contingent — Blair held to his position like a man standing up against a gale. The renegades, joined by Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and M.P.s from nationalist parties in Wales and Scotland, didn't come close to getting their amendment passed, but that was little solace to Blair. "This is not an issue of backbenchers opposed to their government, or even Labour Party members opposed to their government," says backbencher and former Labour junior minister Glenda Jackson. "It is about the nation opposed to its government."
As George W. Bush vows to push ahead with his war plans, majorities across Europe remain opposed — and nowhere is that opposition more pronounced than in the countries whose governments are most supportive of Bush: the U.K., Spain and Italy. Three weeks ago, Europeans made their feelings known with mass marches across the Continent. Now smaller groups are taking a more direct approach. In Italy, protesters disrupted trains carrying military equipment, encouraged union dock workers not to load U.S. matériel at the Tuscan port of Livorno, blocked ferries in the Sicilian port of Catania and busted into an Italian military airbase in Pisa. Similar actions took place in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. None of them had much effect — "We know we can't stop them, but we can slow them down," says Nicola Fratoianni, 30, one of the protesters who broke into the Pisa airbase — but they're the sharp edge of a movement that's not going away.
Blair emerged from the Commons battle looking haggard. But he sat down in front of the television cameras with six antiwar campaigners for an impassioned debate, saying he was backing the U.S. position on Iraq "because I believe in it." There's no doubting that. But stalwart conviction doesn't always convince others, and most Britons have not yet been persuaded. Recognizing that, Blair has put great stake in securing a second Security Council resolution that would give the war a measure of international approval. But the necessary votes are hard to come by and the threat of a veto remains. So Blair jeered at Saddam's promise to destroy his outlawed al-Samoud 2 missiles — "He never makes any concessions at all other than with the threat of force hanging over him," Blair said — even as France, Germany and Russia seized on the move as evidence that inspections are working after all.
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