Verbatim report of Martin Bell and Bruce Kent addressing Reg Keys picnic 2 May 2005
Martin Bell
We've just had a fantastic morning canvassing, really the best we've had so far. And we've had some very good ones indeed. When this started I said at the opening press conference it takes three things to elect an independent; a well known candidate, a good cause and a vulnerable incumbent MP. We've got all three, in spades right here and the MP is looking more vulnerable with every day that passes.
We don't just support Reg. We don't just admire Reg. We love Reg. He's a fantastic human being and there could not possibly be a better candidate. I mean, look at the breadth of support he's attracted. What other coalition could have Freddy Forsyth at one end and Bruce Kent at the other.
Bruce, it's over to you sir.
[Applause]
Bruce Kent
And Martin Bell in the middle. Fantastic!
I'm here today just because I'm really angry and I'm angry because I've seen, I remember so well the night in '97, I was in the basement of a hall in Islington somewhere and we were looking at a television and getting slowly sozzled, with joy and delight as seat after seat went and we thought that this Labour government's coming in and we can have a different sort of country. That's what I thought at that time, and I feel in general terms completely betrayed, because we haven't had that. We've had in every single area what amounts to Tory policies, that's what it comes down to. We've had the primacy of money and power over the needs of ordinary people of this country. Now this is, I'm not standing for parliament, but this is my basic indignation. But most of all I feel, and with Reg here, how could one not feel, I feel betrayed about the issue of peace and war, not just Iraq, that's important enough. I believe that war is one of the most dreadful things that can ever be inflicted on other people, and I've seen a few, I was a boy at the end of the second world war and our house was burned up in the bombing. I was in the Nigerian / Biafran war and I saw people being starved to death which is what it was and war is a catastrophe for everybody involved. We talk about the people who have been killed, but think also of those who've been maimed and mutilated, their lives ruined, their families, the circle of destruction goes out for miles. This country in 1945 tried to set up an organisation the prime purpose, we the peoples of the United Nations determined to free succeeding generations from the scourge of war. That's why we did it. Years of work there have been wars and there will be other wars, but at least the framework of law was started and we began, lots of us, building little bits of it, some of us succeeded in establishing an International Criminal Court, it now there in the Hague and please God, Tony Blair, if some of us succeed in doing what we're doing, and we've been doing it now for two years, Tony Blair will stand in the dock one day at the International Criminal Court [crowd applauds loudly]... he will... he will. Because of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Unfortunately an aggressive war is not part of the agenda of the court .yet,... with bombing civilian facilities he's committed war crimes. And to tear up that law, which was created with such difficulty that military action could only be authorised in two specific circumstances. One... if a country was under immediate threat. We were NOT under immediate threat, I don't blame MP's who voted for the war because they were given the impression that this country or its interests were vulnerable in 45 minutes. That's what they were told, it was absolutely untrue. That phrase that Gilligan used, 'sexing up', is exactly what happened to the intelligence information and it was presented to Parliament in that way. And they were also told there was no doubt about the legality of war. Well no we know that even the political appointee the Attorney General trimmed and trimmed and trimmed what he said originally for what was finally given to Parliament. To do that is to bend and break and ruin the international law structures that we have created and I think it is the people who have paid the price, those people civilians and military who've died in Iraq. I think Blair has got to be held to account for this. It is not an accident, it's a crime that's gone on. And that's why I'm so delighted.
I am only up here from London, I'm a stranger and all that, etc. one of these awful southerners, but I just wish, Reg, you were standing in Haringey, my constituency, but there we are. You're better off up here, because actually you are going to win up here. I've been out this morning for a brief hour and a half and I'll be out again this afternoon. I got one angry dog, one man of 94 who said he was too old to go out, I got two people who said "We're not voting for you" Two people, that's all, one was angry and one was a bit dubious, and the others said they were going to think about it seriously and about five or six said "Of course we're going to vote for him" So the tide in that one little housing estate is going for you Reg. It is going for you. None of that 'push off, who do you think you are southern bastard turning up here and fixing our election' none of that. They couldn't have been politer, as everyone in the north generally is, we know that. Anyway I'm delighted to be here now, I'm going to be doing more canvassing and I'll be watching on television on Thursday night, and I hope to God you get in. Which I'll be delighted if you get in. If the bloody nose referred to by my friend over there, if the bloody nose is the answer it will mean that Tony Blair will have to go. In months, not years, because his party will get rid of him. They will realise they have a millstone around their neck in Tony Blair. But I'm not going for the second option. I'm for the first option.
I am delighted to support Reg Keys, an honest man, who stands for integrity in public life. He has every chance of defeating Tony Blair who led us into an immoral and illegal war.
- ©Reg Keys, 2005 -
