Saturday 15th February 2003 – Hundreds of Liberal Democrats joined over a million people in London to protest against the invasion of Iraq. At the post-march rally in Hyde Park, Charles Kennedy addressed the crowd. Click below to view.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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5 Comments
Happy to be able to say I was there. I actually remember it quite well.
I was on the March, but unfortunately Charles had done his bit by the time we got to Hyde Park.
I was there as well and remember the speech. If any good can come from this tragedy, then it must be that we once again create a radical campaigning progressive party prepared to fight for social justice, civil liberties, sustainable growth and internationalism and develop new policies which protect our people from the worst excesses of globalisation. That would be a fitting memorial to Charles.
Last evenings parliament channel showed a number of Charles’ speeches inside and outside the Chamber. He withstood hysterical barracking from the Tories during his Iraq speech with courage, dignity and good humour. He foretold the rise of terrorism as a result of the war. Two years ago he warned of the political impact of the Scottish referendum. There is much more. I recommend archiving that programme if you can.
I was there with a very thin contingent from the Pennine borders (Yorks/Lancs international boundary 🙂 ) I was taking photos of Charles and the others in the front row of the Lib Dem contingent.
There would have been ten times as many of us Lib Dems on that march were it not for insidious forces within the very centre our Party which were trying to sabotage the resolve of the National Executive Committee to take a stand on this matter in line with our policy. It was disgraceful that there was no official clear endordsment of the march from an official national Party standpoint sent out to Local Parties in the weeks leading up to the march. Accordingly, many Parties did not organise any transport and it was largely (outside of London) left to individuals to make their own way there.