Lessons of Suez 70 years on

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With France it had issued an ultimatum to Egypt and Israel a day earlier demanding a ceasefire — Israel had invaded Egypt on October 29. The ultimatum was a lie: Britain and France had planned the attack on Egypt together with Israel, to overthrow Gamal Abdel Nasser and reverse his nationalisation of the Suez Canal.

That was not just obvious with the benefit of hindsight. It was clear immediately.

The National Council of Labour (bringing together the Labour Party, TUC and Co-operative Movement) announced the formation of a Law Not War campaign at an emergency meeting on November 1.

On November 4 a 30,000-strong demonstration in Trafalgar Square turned into a march on Downing Street demanding the resignation of prime minister Anthony Eden. Marchers chanted: “One, two, three, four, we won’t fight in Eden’s war,” conscription still being a reality in Britain at that time. The demo heard a historic speech from Labour’s Nye Bevan who said the Tory government had “besmirched the name of Britain… there is only one way in which they can even begin to restore their tarnished reputation and that is to get out! Get out! Get out!”

Suez would prove a humiliation for both Britain and France. It became clear neither could any longer pursue an independent imperialist foreign policy. The United States did not support the war and its threat to sell off British government bonds brought London to heel. A ceasefire was forced in little over a week.

Suez saw the warmongers foiled. But it was not really a victory for the peace movement.

The motive for the war — to prevent formal decolonisation of countries like Egypt from translating into the real economic and political independence symbolised by the nationalisation of the Suez Canal — was not one the US objected to. It would intervene around the world, militarily and through coups and assassinations, for much the same reason throughout the cold war and beyond; it still does.

US caution was explained by cold war fear of driving the whole Arab world into the Soviet camp. Post-Suez it moved to assert itself as the dominant power in that part of the world. Its determination that things should stay that way is again a cause of ongoing conflict.

The conclusion drawn by the British ruling class was that the defence of its imperial interests was henceforth only possible through junior partnership to the United States. That assumption still forms the bedrock of British foreign policy.

From our participation in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to our facilitation of US attacks on Iran this year, it is a relationship that has dragged us into conflicts far bloodier than Suez. It now ties us to a far-right president playing with fire on multiple continents.

If only we had learned the truer lesson in Bevan’s words: “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?”

For decades Britain has joined US wars without fear of reprisal. Our rulers now talk of being ready for war “on the scale our grandparents and great-grandparents endured.”

Conflicts are being mooted that would bring the horrific reality of war home to British cities. Conscription is back on the agenda in many European states, placing the young in the same position as those who in 1956 were deployed to Suez without warning.

Would that we had a Labour Party and a TUC as quick to mobilise to stop such wars as we had in 1956.

There are no Nye Bevans on the Labour front bench today, but the necessity of building a peace movement strong enough to stop politicians as reckless as Eden is all the greater. 

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