The opinions of Tony Blair's North-East constituents regarding a war against Iraq

TONY Blair was urged last night to step back from war with Iraq - by voters in his own North-East constituency.

An exclusive poll conducted in Sedgefield by The Northern Echo revealed that 64.6 per cent believe the Prime Minister should not support a US-led bombing campaign to oust Saddam Hussein.

The overwhelming rejection of any British involvement in an attack on Saddam's regime came amid growing disquiet from Government backbenchers and the unions.

The Labour Against the War group, featuring many prominent figures from the left, such as veteran MP Tony Benn, announced yesterday that it would be holding an anti-war rally on the eve of next month's party conference in Blackpool.

Any anti-war motion at the conference is expected to be backed by leaders of some of the biggest unions, such as Bill Morris, of the Transport and General Workers Union, reports suggest.

The Northern Echo's poll surveyed 887 people in areas including Sedgefield, Newton Aycliffe, Ferryhill, the Trimdons, Hurworth and Heighington. Only 17.6 per cent said Tony Blair would be right to support the bombing of Iraq while 17.8 per cent were undecided.

Mr Blair has stated that no decisions have been made on military action, but has stressed that the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction which could be held by Iraq has to be addressed.

Last night, North Durham MP Kevan Jones, who is a member of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, said The Northern Echo poll reflected the feelings of his own constituents.

"People are fearful about what we could be getting ourselves into and what might happen," he said.

"I have had quite a few letters from people raising this and it is an issue many are talking about.

"My personal view is that if Saddam has these weapons he cannot be left with them, but any pre-emptive military action needs to be thought through very carefully."

Fellow Labour MP Ashok Kumar said he was happy to support military action, provided that firm evidence of weapons of mass destruction was available and that parliament was recalled for a debate.

Mr Kumar said he was aware of the discontent among many of his Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituents.

He added: "I am not really surprised by The Northern Echo poll. The essential thing is to produce the evidence that is needed so that we can carry the public with us."

The feeling of many was summed up by pub landlord Neil Hetherington, who runs the Nags Head in Sedgefield.

He said: "Tony Blair seems to be like George Bush's puppet. We should only go to war if there is a genuine threat against us."

Senior defence and diplomatic figures within the Government are said to have advised strongly against an attack on Iraq, believing it will inflame conflicts in Afghanistan, Israel and Kashmir.

Mr Blair is currently away on holiday and his agent, John Burton, was unavailable for comment. But a spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "He is aware of different opinion on this issue.

"People, though, are getting too far ahead of themselves as we are not yet at the point where a decision needs to be made."

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THE Prime Minister's North-East constituents clearly do not think that now is the right time to bomb or attack Iraq.

The Northern Echo's poll shows that only 17.6 per cent of people in Tony Blair's Sedgefield, County Durham, constituency feel he would be right to support an attack on Saddam Hussein by the US.

Indeed, such is the depth of feeling against war - 64.6 per cent against - that it may prove difficult for any attack to gain wide-scale popular support in the foreseeable future.

No one we contacted in the past week had a good, or sympathetic, word to say about Saddam.

But time and again, our pollsters were told that people wanted real evidence that he possesses weapons of mass destruction before they were prepared to think about supporting a war.

There was concern that Mr Blair is clinging too tightly to US President George Bush's coat-tails, and that diplomacy and the UN weapons inspectors had not been given enough time.

There was a deep worry that innocent civilians in Iraq would be the ones to suffer most from an attack, and there was also a fear about the knock-on effect that a war would have on a notoriously unstable region of the world.

A number of people suggested that Mr Blair was concentrating too much on the world stage and not enough on the problems of the public services closer to home. The main argument from the "yes" camp was that there was unfinished business with Saddam following the Gulf War, and that the time was right to complete it.

The Northern Echo's poll was of 887 constituents chosen at random and interviewed over the phone.

While we do not make any scientific claims for the poll, it does provide a fascinating snapshot of opinion at the moment among the electorate of 64,925 in Sedgefield.

In the past, our polls have proved surprisingly accurate in predicting the outcome of the General Election - we were spot on in three out of four constituencies surveyed - and of the size of Ray Mallon's landslide in the Middlesbrough mayoral race.

Last year, we conducted a similar poll in Sedgefield which showed that 50.7 per cent of people thought Mr Blair would be wrong to press ahead with a General Election on May 3, with foot- and-mouth rife in the countryside. Soon afterwards, Mr Blair delayed polling day for a month.

The figures in today's poll from the villages across Mr Blair's constituency are quite consistent.

The Trimdons, Fishburn and Bishopton are the places where an attack has the greatest support, but Sedgefield itself - where the Prime Minister is not as popular as elsewhere in the constituency which bears its name - was vehemently opposed, with only six per cent supporting the bombing.

However, there was some understanding of the difficulty of Mr Blair's position. "If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't know what to do," said one respondent in Bishopton.

Truly a marvelous disclaimer ;)

I do not know if you can persuade your countrymen, David. At their core, I do not think that they truly understand that evil cannot be reasoned with, that it cannot be persuaded, and that attempts to do so only forestall the inevitable.

I confess that this makes little sense to me - were there a mad dog wandering the streets of Sedgefield, attacking children and the elderly, would they try to reason with it, to persuade it to behave in a more appropriate manner? Would they "sanction" it, hoping that it would learn to behave if denied food and water? Would they simply ignore it and hope that it goes away on its own, to attack people somewhere else? How many people would it have to bite before it occurred to someone to just kill the damn thing and be done with it?

This is what we are faced with - there is no reasoning with such an animal, and there is no negotiation. I know this is seen as naïve and unsubtle to those who obsess about "root causes" and whether or not the mad dog is somehow justified in biting someone, but I think I'll wait and see who is unbitten at the end of the day - those who reserve the right to act preemptively, or those who insist on trying to pet the nice doggie.

Der Krieg ist ... eine Fortsetzung der politschen Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel
(War is the continuation of politics and diplomacy by other means)
-- Karl von Clausewitz

I think that doubts about US intentions on Iraq are present in the left, right and centre in the UK and what people who would wish to support the US on this issue actually need are arguments which address what I take to be the concerns of that broader consituency:

a) confidence that the White House has a coherent plan and won't screw it up, thereby causing an oil crisis and global recession.

b) that the US is willing to listen to the views and consider the interests of other nations who might be affected by any such action - especially the one major ally that might support the idea of removing Saddam

Blair has put himself on the line over this and it looks like the US doesn't give a damn if he goes under and gets replaced by a colleague who will - whatever their own views - have to position themselves as pro-EU and anti-US just to bring their party back together.

The anti-war crowd aren't persuadable IMO. Most of the UK isn't in that group though but rather look on war as an extension of soccer and take great pride when our 'team' wins. These folks are generally revolted by Saddam and would be quite content to go after him under most circumstances.

The average Brit, IMO is concerned because there are so many different stories leaking out of Washington, some of them quite obvious disinformation aimed at allies - that it looks like the US doesn't know what it's doing and is rather clumsily trying to hide the fact that the military wants a risk-free plan involving local bases (ie pesky allies) and massive heavy forces while their civilian bosses want a financially and politically cheaper approach based on air-power, special forces and local allies, that would be much riskier and which scares the pants off all the other industrial nations because Saudi is *already* unstable.

They are also deeply disturbed by the kind of rhetoric that's all too common on these forums - 'We have so many guns and are so tough that if those snotty Brits (or whoever) don't like what we want to do, we can make them like it.'

It's pretty clear that the US as a whole is not in any mood to hear outside advice suggesting this is a problem. Based on analogy with the first mainland IRA incidents, it won't be ready to hear that stuff for some years, so I don't really think that there *are* any arguments that can help with the situation we find in this morning's UK papers.

It's a done deal now IMO - I think Blair has to back away from his stance of unconditional support for the US or be scragged by his own party. He's not going to sacrifice himself over this.

a) confidence that the White House has a coherent plan and won't screw it up, thereby causing an oil crisis and global recession.

b) that the US is willing to listen to the views and consider the interests of other nations who might be affected by any such action - especially the one major ally that might support the idea of removing Saddam.

Yes, I agree that these conditions would have to be met. Britain would be more damaged by a 1973 style oil crisis than the USA, hence the US government must sweeten the Arab countries before taking any action, if it wants to get the support of the British people.

The anti-war crowd aren't persuadable IMO.

No they aren't, but they are a tiny minority.

Most of the UK isn't in that group though but rather look on war as an extension of soccer and take great pride when our 'team' wins. These folks are generally revolted by Saddam and would be quite content to go after him under most circumstances.

The majority of Britons are peaceful people who are appalled by the prospect of a bloody war. Only a small proportion, (usually those who are not at any risk from military conscription if the war spreads), see fighting a war overseas more like a patriotic game.

The average Brit, IMO is concerned because there are so many different stories leaking out of Washington, some of them quite obvious disinformation aimed at allies...

Regardless of what Washingtom says it seems clear that if Iraq is involved with Al Qaeda then it is a serious threat to the USA and Britain and should be sorted out. Have you read any of the reports on Hussein's regime by Khidir Hamza, (the Iraqi nuclear defector)? Do you think it is safe to leave Saddam Hussein running Iraq any longer?

...it looks like the US doesn't know what it's doing and is rather clumsily trying to hide the fact that the military wants a risk-free plan involving local bases (ie pesky allies) and massive heavy forces while their civilian bosses want a financially and politically cheaper approach based on air-power, special forces and local allies, that would be much riskier...

The USA is the only country in the World which can sort out Iraq. It must utilise at least as much military might as it did during Desert Storm. Relying on Iraqi rebels or other 'local allies' would be a serious mistake, since that scenario could backfire terribly.

Based on analogy with the first mainland IRA incidents, it won't be ready to hear that stuff for some years, so I don't really think that there *are* any arguments that can help with the situation we find in this morning's UK papers.

If Iraq is providing material support to Al Qaeda and is developing an Atomic bomb, then don't you think that would convince most British people to support a plan to depose Saddam? After all, the threat of an A-bomb attack on Britain or America organised by Iraq and carried out by Al Qaeda must be a distinct possibility once Iraq obtains a nuclear capability. A Biological weapons attack put together by Iraq could come before Saddam gets a nuclear capability.

I think Blair has to back away from his stance of unconditional support for the US or be scragged by his own party.

If there is evidence of Iraqi complicity in the September 11th attacks and/or an ongoing cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda, then I think the Labour party would have to give grudging support to any Military action to resolve the situation.

He said: "Tony Blair seems to be like George Bush's puppet. We should only go to war if there is a genuine threat against us."

thanks for asking for my opinion. i picked this phrase to highlight that the liberal media in the uk is as bad as the liberal media in the us. when tony does as the media wants, he is probably viewed as a man of iron. but when the media disagrees, do everything to spread a derogatory view of the man and situation. i might add, that although i find tony blair to be very personable and a great communicator, his views are often not aligned with mine. nonetheless, he does (unlike our ex-pres) seem to be a man of honor and is standing tall on this issue. i know that he will do what he views as the right thing and not be dogged by polls.

sadam has to go. he is a terrorist. he has paid large sums of money to suicide bombers (he has admitted to this). he and his regime supported at least one of the 911 (or is it 119 in the uk?) bombers -- mohammad atta. he has weapons of mass destruction and he has used them on people living within the borders of iraq. israel, with perhaps the greatest intelligence in the world, bombed a nuclear reactor because they had information that the reactor's primary function was to furnish the radioactive isotopes for a nuclear bomb.

saddam is desparately trying to get a nuclear bomb. defectors from the project have so stated. dick cheney has gone on record as stating he believe saddam will have them in 3 years.

this man has no respect for international law. he has not allowed weapons inspectors into his country for many years as dictated as part of the peace plan with the united nations. this issue alone is, per international law, reason to go to war with iraq. yet, as a peace loving western world, we look for every reason to not go to war.

the next question we have to ask, is, "if saddam has wmd, will he use them?" the answer is "of course." he will do anything to save his own hide. during the gulf war, when america and the united nations were liberating kuwait, he lobbed scud missiles at israel. there was strategic reason to do this to win the war, other than to hope that israel would retaliate and bring on an islam/arab war against the united nations. his past actions strongly dictate that he will use wmd in an instant.

given all of this, should the western world, led by the united states and the uk, go to war with iraq? a resounding yes is the only answer i can give. i learned a long time ago that the only way to stop the bully on the playground is to challenge him when he strikes. bullies back down. they get their joy from terrorizing their prey. history teaches us the same lesson: hitler and czechoslovakia, germany and the balkans, stalin and the eastern block, poland and their resistance to the soviet union. even those damn colonies across the pond in 1776 were the result of finally saying we are not going to take it any longer (sorry about the cheap shot, chap!)

so why are we not at war right now with iraq and why does it appear that the united states is not united for a war? (you ask). good question! bush is slow to anger and quick to respond when he must -- just like the uk in the 17th and 18th centuries when its empire was being threatened and its corporate profits were being ripped off. bush is trying to gain a coalition with arab/islamic nations. he is using this battle of words as a means of determine who is for us and who is against us. woe be it to those who is against us. he is also looking for every possible way to overthrow saddam while minimizing bloodshed. while we are the greatest power on earth, we, like the uk, do not wish to use it unless absolutely possible. we value human life.

contrary to what you might read in the papers, most of the united states is united for the war. the democrats are scared for their political life. if bush gives the go ahead to fight a war, the republicans will win in 2002 and 2004. the democrats are doing everything they can to question bush in public and cast doubts on the american people. most americans do not buy this crap spewed by the mainstream socialistic press. remember who is behind the democratic propaganda: carville, clinton and mccauliffe -- perhaps the 3 biggest stooges in the us right now. clinton is trying to save his legacy and if bush beats terrorism, or even TRIES to beat terrorism, he will be a hero compared to the feeble attempts trying to defend the country.

democratic comments about trying to find a different way of dealing with saddam ring hollow. we have been trying for 8 years under clinton and the situation has gotten worse. the democrats are trying to scare america into not fighting by saying that many western folks will be killed. i did not see the iraqis fight a war 'to the death' 10 years ago when they had 3 times their current capabilities -- and most will give up shortly after the first few salvos are fired. western lives will be lost, but more will be lost if we do not stop saddam before he has weapons of mass destruction.

we have a case to go after him based on his previous behaviours. the fact that he is a threat and will be a major threat within 3 years says we must proactively stop this man.

...the liberal media in the uk is as bad as the liberal media in the us. when tony does as the media wants, he is probably viewed as a man of iron. but when the media disagrees, do everything to spread a derogatory view of the man and situation.

Although the political leanings of the newspapers and other media outlets are important factors as to the accuracy of their reporting, even the supposedly politically neutral BBC often report only what they want people to know. The BBC have a stranglehold over public opinion in Britain. It is funded by a compulsory fee payable by all TV and video owners. This means it can act without any accountability, since it always has a reliable source of income. Often BBC news reporting is deliberately biased in favour of whoever the Beeb are sympathetic to.

An example of this was their behaviour after the death of the Princess of Wales. This was a very sad incident of course, but usually the BBC only reserve that kind of total coverage for wars! Their 24 hour coverage and endless speculation basically brainwashed the population into an attitude of almost national hysteria. This organisation controls the majority of the electronic news media; terrestrial and digital TV, national and local radio and also the internet. The conclusion is in order to get public support in Britain, you need the BBC on your side, Blair doesn't have that luxury.

i know that he will do what he views as the right thing and not be dogged by polls.

He probably will stand by the USA to the bitter end. I doubt most Americans realise the depth of his loyalty to your country. He is a product of the post CND/Scargill/Kinnock 1980s old Labour shambles, hence he has rejected the rampant anti-americanism of the Labour party of that era and has in fact become very pro-american. However, Gordon Brown is waiting in the wings and if there is a well planned back bench revolt Blair could be ousted, he has talked about stepping down after the next general election anyway. Brown would be more loyal to his party's political dogma and is less likely to be such a good ally to the USA.

Reports on these things are hard to find in the British media and especially in the BBC's news reports. Have you come across any good articles about Saddam's support of terrorists etc? If so, please post links to them. One of the arguments I hear while speaking to my countrymen is that there is no proof Saddam is supporting terrorism, or al Qaeda, and the US government is just saying that to get support.

israel, with perhaps the greatest intelligence in the world, bombed a nuclear reactor because they had information that the reactor's primary function was to furnish the radioactive isotopes for a nuclear bomb.

Saddam's first nuclear reactor was supplied by the USSR. But the reactor you speak of was actually supplied and maintained by the French. Apparently, the Israelis warned the French maintenance crew to be away from the Iraqi nuclear complex on the day it was bombed!

If he has violated the conditions of the peace treaty signed after the Gulf War, then direct action should be taken as a matter of principle. Otherwise, he will flout the rules with impunity, just as Hitler did after he got away with breaking the conditions of the treaty of Versailles on that first occasion.

the next question we have to ask, is, "if saddam has wmd, will he use them?" the answer is "of course." he will do anything to save his own hide.

I hear people over here say that Saddam would be more likely to use WMD if he is attacked by the West, in order to hold onto power. Hence we should continue a policy of containment. However, if he is backing terrorists, it seems clear to me that should he obtain a mobile WMD capability then 'containment' can no longer work.

democratic comments about trying to find a different way of dealing with saddam ring hollow. we have been trying for 8 years under clinton and the situation has gotten worse.

How else can he be dealt with? Containment has obviously failed, so direct action is the only option. Saddam is not one to respect agreements, he has no honour and his history of brinksmanship over the past few years proves we can not negotiate with him. My favourite Saddam quote is:

"Don't tell me about the law. The law is anything I write on a scrap of paper."

He comes up with some wonderfully revealing statements.

the democrats are trying to scare america into not fighting by saying that many western folks will be killed. i did not see the iraqis fight a war 'to the death' 10 years ago when they had 3 times their current capabilities -- and most will give up shortly after the first few salvos are fired. western lives will be lost, but more will be lost if we do not stop saddam before he has weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam was amazingly outspoken about what he would do to the forces opposing him during the Gulf War. What was it he said half way through, something like: "the grandmother of all battles is still to come"?

All those years of sanctions can't have done much to help him maintain the strength of his armed forces. However, he may have the support of his people now, due to their collective suffering since 1991. Therefore, they might be more ready to resist this time around. But our superior air power should give us the edge, even if he does manage to mobilise a large force of determined troops.

we have a case to go after him based on his previous behaviours. the fact that he is a threat and will be a major threat within 3 years says we must proactively stop this man.

Saddam should be removed from power as soon as possible. He obviously despises the USA and Britain and I believe he would supply WMD to terrorists bent on attacking us. He is a threat to peace in the Middle East region, since he is using the Palestinians as pawns against Israel. I believe he is trying to escalate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to discourage the West from taking any direct action against Iraq.

If the argument is based on the risks posed by access to WMD by terrorists, then I have yet to talk with anyone who doesn't accept that this isn't a matter of grave concern.

The problem I think, is that people have differing views on how to measure and balance the risks of various scenarios that they can imagine in this context.

For example, one comeback I've had over the last week (I've been doing a bit of informal 'research' on friends and relatives) is that yes, Saddam is a creep and may have WMD of some kind, but Pakistan has them also and seems to many a more likely source of them, for extreme Islamic terrorists at least. Plenty of other examples occurred, including some 'tin foil hat' ones which I'll leave to one side for now.

They also tend to point out that this is a complex situation where any action can have unpredictable side effects from one risk scenario to another. E.G. Iraq is invaded pretty successfully, but Pakistan goes Islamic as part of the subsequent evens and we all get nuked anyhow.

Most people, unless they're completely nuts, can agree that some such non-Iraq risks exist too without any problem, the place they start to disagree, is when it comes to balancing these risks, and various potential nasty interactions, against each other.

For example, it's pretty easy to discuss the risks of driving quickly vs being late. You might disagree with someone's priorities, but we all know how to balance that stuff.

These aren't risks like the risk you take when crossing the road, or even the risks measured by a body of accepted, well understood science like that around the dangers of smoking.

This is the kind of risk where people disagree on far more fundamental stuff. They can't agree about how to measure it, so it's more like a discussion of the risks of say global warming, where even the experts don't all agree, than it is like discussing whether it's safe to cross at a traffic light, where we all know how to judge the risks involved from an early age, with no reliance on experts or spin-doctors of whatever persuasion.

This is when people get angry with each other, because they are balancing the risks differently, depending if they have a libertarian, egalitarian, hierarchical or cyncial view of the way the world works. So what they are saying either sounds like loony nonsense or downright evil, depending who is looking at who on that occasion.

I think the BIG problem here then, is that many people simply don't trust any of those who are appointed by the present circumstances as the incumbent experts. This is compounded by the usual transatlantic prejudices, but there are some particular issues too.

I take the White House approach to be informed by a strong awareness that if you allow complexities to exist in the public mind, then that public will very soon be divided on whether the risks should be measured and balanced against each other precisely as their government measures them.

That immediately creates a situation where many people who can see the complexities clearly, start violently shouting about them. I.E. this approach has the opposite of the intended result, because it fundamentally insults peoples intelligence, which many people rather resent. This is also I suspect, the basis of the 'stupidity' charge often heard.

It makes the libertarians and egalitarians angry and determined to get everybody to notice the complexities and adopt their way of balancing the risks (if they can agree on one, which they almost certainly can't)

It makes the cynics even more bitter and twisted and leaves the hierarchical folks yelling "traitor' at the people who won't accept the US government's word unconditionally and keep pointing out inconvenient alternative scenarios and/or trying to balance the risks another way.

I'm not sure one fixes this exactly.

Historically, I think that's exactly *why* so many countries have ended up passing some sort of rule that parliament or whover must approve of any proposed war.

The principle being, if you can't get 500 or so of those folks to agree to do it, it's probably going to be so hugely divisive that public opinion ends up crippling your forces.

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