« Not a penny, not a weapon, not a human life for war »

European leaders are preparing for war. A massive rearmament programme is underway. The working class will be asked to pay the price for their weapons and wars, through taxes and cuts in our social provision and living standards – as well as through our blood and toil.

The post-Second World War order is disintegrating – politically, financially and militarily. We face worsening multiple crises: of capitalism itself, that endangers the very future of humanity; the imminent ecological collapse; and the increasing possibility of world war and even nuclear war. These are not new problems, but they are accelerated by the second Trump presidency and the rise of the far right across Europe.

That’s why activists, trade unionists and democrats from across Europe are launching a call to come together against war and military spending, and to reject the demand by European governments that the people support their brutal and destructive policies: in a show of so-called ‘national unity’. But this is fake patriotism. These are not our wars. And we will not pay for them – or die in them.

As French writer Anatole France said at the time of the First World War: “You think you are dying for your country, you are dying for industrialists”. Millions died then, and that’s what will happen again, if we don’t stop this warmongering and rearmament.

Already the European ruling class is waging a proxy war in Ukraine, already it is backing the Israeli genocide against the people of Palestine.

These are the facts:

• a million dead and wounded, on both sides, in Ukraine and Russia.
• tens of thousands dead and wounded in Palestine, in the attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing of the entire population.

The chief beneficiaries are the arms manufacturers, and those who will profit from the exploitation of the resources of Palestine and Ukraine. But we will not support this exploitation.

We say:

• NO to war and the attacks on the welfare state
• NO to war budgets and warmongers
• NO to war policies, wherever they come from

We call for unity of the people of Europe, for peace, not war; for justice and equality, not exploitation: “Not a penny, not a weapon, not a human life for war”.