THE trade union movement risks “sleepwalking into catastrophe” by mutely following a Tory government bent on escalating war with Russia, delegates at the first ever Stop the War Coalition trade union conference heard today.

Stop the War vice-chair and former Unite chief of staff Andrew Murray warned that the British government had the most aggressive stance of any world power on the war in Ukraine — with even the United States seeing more “nuance and dissent”.

By contrast, a cross-party consensus in Britain was pushing the war’s “continuation, exacerbation and extension” — and the TUC’s endorsement of more arms spending showed it failed to understand that “war is a class question and the working-class movement must stand against it,” he charged.

Speaker after speaker urged attendees, many having been sent to represent branches of unions affiliated to Stop the War including Unite, Unison, the UCU, the FBU and more, to campaign to overturn the TUC’s pro-arms spending policy by passing motions in their branches and unions against it.

Unison executive member Liz Wheatley pointed out that arms spending would only come at the expense of the proper funding for public services and the pay rises being fought for across the NHS, education and the Civil Service, and said union members should urge their branches to invite Stop the War speakers to address them as we mark the 20th anniversary of the biggest protest march in British history against the Iraq war on February 15 2003.

The conference also heard from Genoa docker Jose Nivoi, who described the dockers’ actions in refusing to load arms for conflict zones, including Yemen, Palestine and Ukraine, in the Italian port.

And discussions included the wider drive to war occasioned by the US’s determination to remain “global top dog” and the folly of accepting it in the mistaken belief it would create British jobs.

If the US war on China happens, “it won’t support jobs in Barrow or Derby or Bristol,” transport union RMT president Alex Gordon warned. “It will destroy the world.”

Stop the War is holding a Peace Talks Now — Stop the War in Ukraine demonstration on February 25 in London, and calling on all regions to mobilise to raise voices for peace on that day.