'UK aid for extremists stokes Woolwich-style terrorism'

As the trial date for the Woolwich murder suspects is confirmed for November 18, greater light is being shed on the broader reasons for the attack. The consequence of arming and aiding extremists is being seen on London’s streets, said MP George Galloway.

“Tell them to bring our troops back so you can all live in peace. Leave our land and you will all live in peace,” one suspect, Michael Adebolajo, was filmed shouting shortly after the meat-cleaver assault.

His potent statement is recorded evidence of what drives terrorists to act, highlighting a powerful link between the UK’s foreign policy and potential domestic terrorists, the efforts against which the UK is pouring money into. George Galloway, MP for the UK’s Respect Party spoke to RT about the ‘insanity’ of continuing to interfere overseas.

RT:The UK intelligence agencies will be getting 100 million pounds per year from 2015. Chancellor George Osborne says this is because they are on the front line, and need a boost to their resources. Security is surely a priority. So they deserve this money don’t they?

GG: Well, they probably need every penny of it and more because Britain is at a very real and present danger from terrorism. Both from within and from without. But only a fool or a knave would seek to separate British foreign policy from that danger of terrorism. Only a fool could imagine that if you go around the world invading and occupying other people’s counties then you’re not going to generate a real danger to yourself.

But we’ve gone one step further – in Syria  (as before in Libya) – we’re actually giving guns and money to the very terrorist extremists who are attacking us on the streets of our own capital city. It must be a policy which virtually qualifies as insanity, and an insane policy at home is not going to keep people safe.

RT:So you're saying British foreign policy is responsible for that attack that we saw in Woolwich. Is it surprising that there haven’t been more attacks like that though?

GG: That’s right, but the intelligence services have probably thwarted several. But you don’t have to take my word for it – you have the video of the murderers in Woolwich themselves, telling us why they were doing it.

We had the martyrdom videos of the maniacs who blew themselves up and hundreds of others on 7/7 2005 in London on the underground and on a London bus, and they too told us why they were doing it – I see no reason to doubt them. 

RT:Yet David Cameron will say what happens in Afghanistan is so vital to our national security – to people like you walking the streets in London and the UK...

But it’s having the opposite effect – it’s making us more imperiled. Our situation is more dangerous: the more we attack and invade other people, the more we arm and finance extreme fury, fanatics, who beheaded a Christian bishop just yesterday and videoed it in front of women and children watching it, and put it up on the internet whilst chanting the name of God... They’re paid for by us – by the same David Cameron who tells us we need 100 million pounds to go to the security services to protect us from the very people he’s employing as agents in the struggle in Syria.

RT:How is all of this now impacting upon societal divisions in the UK? How worried are you about the anti-Muslim sentiment?

I’m worried about it but we shouldn’t overestimate it. There have been isolated attacks which have largely been pathetically insubstantial upon mosques and Muslim institutions of various kinds. There have been fatalities in individual attacks on Muslims. But the vast majority of British people are not like that. This is not a country where fascism has any attraction. After all, together with Russia we defeated fascism in the living memory of some people who are still alive today. So people in jack boots and giving Hitler salutes and wearing swastikas like the people who are doing these things, are never going to find much traction in Britain.

Most British people according to the opinion polls blame the government – only 11 percent of the British people in the last opinion poll, support David Cameron’s policy of arming and financing these fanatics in Syria. Even in the Iraq war, before we knew it was built upon a tower of lies, the majority of British people were against it. 

The problem is in the building behind me, where the boys in the bubble follow the leader, whatever he has to say. Although even inside that bubble, the beheading of a Christian bishop may prove a turning point just like the eating of a heart on video – on YouTube – by the same kind of people a month or two ago, decisively began a swing in public opinion away from these fanatics.