George Galloway: 'Are you ready to die for that?' King and Country debate Oxford Union - 2023

9 February 2023, Oxford Union, Oxford, United Kingdom

The topic ‘That This House Will under no circumstances fight for its King and its Country’ was famously debated in the union in 1933, when pacifism debates were all the rage post WW1 and in the buildup to WW2. The question was reposited 90 years to the day.

Mr. President, Right honourable and honourable gentleman, gallant officers of the military, there's an awful lot of fighters in here. Have you noticed? They're all ready to fight.

 I would've opposed this motion in 1933 for the reasons articulated by my colleagues in their opening speeches. In fact, I would've been the first in the queue of the recruiting office, had I been alive to fight fascism. Indeed, I would've been agitating to fight fascism in Spain three years before the Second World War. In 1936, both of my grandfathers fought fascism, under Montgomery, all the way from El Alamain to Monte Casino. I'm a former boy soldier, Lance Bombardier, Royal Artillery Battery 2, Army cadet force. I'm a former cadet in the Royal Marines, # in Dorset. I'm not a pacifist. In fact, I'll go five rounds with Tobias Elwood after the debate if he's up for it! And I'm twice his age!

But the people on the other side arguing against this motion have already damned most of the wars that I came here to oppose! You, you even oppose the First World War and the Afghan War and the Iraq War. Tobias Elwood tells us he opposed the Iraq War. I missed that when I was leading the fight against it, but I am delighted that nowadays you cannot find anyone who will support these wars that our politicians gave us in this 21st century. [interruption] Yes?

With successful military interventions such as the hospital in Sierra Leone, do not agree that it is possible to have successful humanitarian military intervention?

 No, I don't agree with the intervention in either of those cases. A better case could have been made for the Faulklands. An intervention, I did support. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, because that was a direct attack on British people, British citizens, and I supported it. But the examples you gave are not good ones. I'm sorry I gave way to you. I'm not going to dwell on the King, it's just as well he's got a divine right to be King, because nobody would ever have picked him! Least of all his own family!

On this day in 1649, on this day, the Rump parliament, a better parliament than we have today passed the following motion: 'The office of a King in this land is unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous to the life and liberty and public interest of the people of this nation.' I wish the parliament would pass that motion today.

I'm not going to dwell on the King for it would be an absurdity as has been acknowledged here, that because King Charles tells you you've got to go and fight and die in a war, you're going to do it! Utterly absurd.

So let's turn to Country. Who is the country? What is the country? Who you going to fight for, Rishi Sunak! You, you upgraded the lack of height of my colleague. Have you seen Rishi Sunak? In fact, if you push Zelensky on Sunak's shoulders, you still wouldn't even get a Napoleon. These are small men. Are you really going to follow ... give them a blank check. Yes, I'll fight for you, Rishi Sunak! You only have to roll the name, or his predecessor. What was her name? Liz Truss. Are you telling me that if Liz Truss said you had to go to war and die, you would do it because she was the prime minister. Tony Blair. Tony Blair, yes. [to opposition supporter clapping loudly] yes, I knew you were an idiot from the sunglasses that you are wearing.Tony Blair. Anyone?

Tony Blair, anyone? Who caused the death of a million people and counting! Who cascaded fanatic Islamist extremism around the world. You call them spores, the murder cult of Isis, Al-Qaeda, the head chopping throat cutters, the million dead Iraqis and you want to do it all again, by signing a blank check to Tobias Elwood? He told you, did you notice the word, the caveat that he slipped in for you? There's no conscription -- yet. He said, did you notice it? He was on television less than two weeks ago calling for martial law to be introduced in this country. In which case, I saw your lips move on Sky News. I saw your lips move on Sky News. And if we had martial law, we wouldn't be having this debate. And it might not be long before you can take off your fur hat and put on a tin one and go off to fight and die on the question of whether Kipensk is on one side of a line when it's been in four different countries in the last hundred years.

You ready to die for that? Because I'm not.

And I'm not ready for sure to give a blank check to politicians to command my loyalty. My loyalty is to God, to my religion. I believe in St. Thomas Aquinas's concept of 'the just war'. I'll fight in a just war. If somebody attacks us, I'll fight them, getting on in years as I am. I'll tell my son to go and fight them. All of my sons, all of my daughters for a just cause. But you are not fighting for a just cause If you sign up to the concept that you will fight for King and Country because that's an unqualified commitment that you are making

My colleague was mocked for pointing out that there are circumstances in which, what does that bell mean by the way, some people have spoken for 20 minutes, she pointed out, there are circumstances in which we would fight.

Now I saved this last bit for little Ben Wallace, who I was told was coming here tonight and frankly, he's the only reason I'm here and he didn't show up. You're going to fight with wha? With what? You said I'd attack Tommy Atkins. I never have. I attack the donkeys that exploit the lives and limbs of the lions that they send into these wars. You will never hear me attack an individual British soldier. Far from it. I'm one of the volunteers of Jim Davidson's Care After Combat, looking after people that have been abandoned by the politicians that gaily sent them into war. Where is Tommy Atkins? He's on the streets with the homeless people. Where is Tommy Atkins? He's in the mental health hospital, damaged and abandoned by those that sent him into war. Where is Tommy Atkins? He's disproportionately in the prison system and not as a warder. Where is Tommy Atkins? He's disproportionately hooked on drugs. He's in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester. I've picked him up myself, hooked on fentanyl and all these new opioids. That's what Tommy Atkins ends up doing in Tory Britain.

They send these men after war filled with their fake patriotism, King and country, straw hats and trumpets, and when they come back, they have no use for them. They leave them to rot on the streets without houses, jobs, futures, hope.

So don't come here and wave your flags at me. Don't come here and sound the tinny brass trumpet of your patriotism. Yes, we will fight for the working people of this country. Yes, we will fight for the good things about our way of life. By the way, when did you fall out of love with using armed force to take territory? We controlled 25% of the entire world's surface and ruled one third of the people of the world under our flag. All of it taken by armed conquest. All of those people held in subjugation by the British Empire and now they want to parade as if they were Boy Scouts that oppose the acquisition of other people's territory by force. These hypocrites.

Robert Burns, my national poet, put it this way. In an ode on the occasion of a National Thanksgiving:

“Ye Hypocrites, are these your pranks
To murder men and gie God thanks
Desist for shame, proceed no further
God won't accept your thanks for murder.”

I move.

Aneurin (Nye) Bevan: 'Get out! Get out! Get out!', Suez Crisis, Trafalgar Square speech - 1956

4 November 1956, Trafalgar Square, London.

It is a sad sad sad story that is unfolding itself before our eyes at the present time. I very very sad one indeed. I myself feel despondent, really despondent, about the situation into which we have been got. When some young Tory’s say, ‘oh, we are giving the lead,’ the lead to where!

Yes, the lead back to chaos, back to anarchy, and back to universal destruction.

That’s not the lead we want.

This policy of the British government is a policy of bankruptcy and despair. It’s not the policy of civilisation.

They’re hoping that the military situation in Egypt will soon resolve itself, and that we will be ‘militarily successful ‘. If we are successful, what will that prove? It will only prove that we are stronger than the Egyptians. It won’t prove that weare right. It’s only the logic of the bully, many Tory  newspapers are saying today, ‘oh well, perhaps we are judging too soon?’ ‘It may be that (PM) Eden will get it all over with, and then we can breathe a sigh of relief.’

That’s what the Germans said about Hitler! They said, ‘he may be a liar, but will he be a successful liar? They said, he’s a bully, but will he be a successful bully? They were perfectly prepared to accept his morality, so long as he gives them the prizes.

But yeah, we must look further into this.

We are stronger than Egypt but there are other countries stronger than us. Are we prepared to accept for ourselves the logic we are applying to Egypt? If nations more powerful than ourselves accept the absence of principle, the anarchistic attitude of Eden and launch bombs on London, what answer have we got, what complaint have we got? If we are going to appeal to force, if force is to be the arbiter to which we appeal, it would at least make common sense to try to make sure beforehand that we have got it, even if you accept that abysmal logic, that decadent point of view.

We are in fact in the position today of having appealed to force in the case of a small nation, where if it is appealed to against us it will result in the destruction of Great Britain, not only as a nation, but as an island containing living men and women. Therefore I say to Anthony, I say to the British government, there is no count at all upon which they can be defended.

They have besmirched the name of Britain. They have made us ashamed of the things of which formerly we were proud. They have offended against every principle of decency and there is only way in which they can even begin to restore their tarnished reputation and that is to get out! Get out! Get out!

Kaiser Wilhelm II: 'Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves', 'Hunnerede', speech to troops departing to Boxer Rebellion - 1900

The official version released by palace did not have specific reference to Atila and the Huns.

27 July 1900, Bremerhaven, Germany

Great overseas tasks have fallen to the new German Empire, tasks far greater than many of my countrymen expected. The German Empire has, by its very character, the obligation to assist its citizens if they are being set upon in foreign lands. The tasks that the old Roman Empire of the German nation was unable to accomplish, the new German Empire is in a position to fulfill. The means that make this possible is our army.

It has been built up during thirty years of faithful, peaceful labor, following the principles of my blessed grandfather. You, too, have received your training in accordance with these principles, and by putting them to the test before the enemy, you should see whether they have proved their worth in you. Your comrades in the navy have already passed this test; they have shown that the principles of your training are sound, and I am also proud of the praise that your comrades have earned over there from foreign leaders. It is up to you to emulate them.

A great task awaits you: you are to revenge the grievous injustice that has been done. The Chinese have overturned the law of nations; they have mocked the sacredness of the envoy, the duties of hospitality in a way unheard of in world history. It is all the more outrageous that this crime has been committed by a nation that takes pride in its ancient culture. Show the old Prussian virtue. Present yourselves as Christians in the cheerful endurance of suffering. May honor and glory follow your banners and arms. Give the whole world an example of manliness and discipline.

You know full well that you are to fight against a cunning, brave, well-armed, and cruel enemy. When you encounter him, know this: no quarter will be given. Prisoners will not be taken. Exercise your arms such that for a thousand years no Chinese will dare to look cross-eyed at a German. Maintain discipline. May God’s blessing be with you, the prayers of an entire nation and my good wishes go with you, each and every one. Open the way to civilization once and for all! Now you may depart! Farewell, comrades!”

The unofficial but correct version of the crucial passage reads as follows:

“Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.”