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![]() | ![]() | Walter Wolfgang, 82, is pulled out of his seat after objecting to the comparison of post-war Iraq to the Germany he fled.
Picture: Scott Barbour/ Getty Images | OAP who fled Nazis thrown out of conference for Iraq war criticism
GERRI PEEV AND JAMES KIRKUP
The Scotsman, September 30, 2005
AN 82-YEAR-OLD man who fled Nazi Germany was yesterday thrown out of the Labour Party conference for disagreeing with a speech by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary. The embarrassing scene at the Brighton conference angered delegates, who later hit back at Tony Blair's leadership, endorsing union-sponsored motions criticising his government over pensions and the NHS.
Earlier, Walter Wolfgang was bundled out of the auditorium when he protested against Mr Straw comparing the political situation in Iraq to post-war Germany. A second man who tried to defend the delegate's right to freedom of speech was dragged out of the hall by stewards. The treatment of the men yesterday appalled MPs and activists, who pressed party chiefs to launch an investigation. The Foreign Secretary's claim, that "we are in Iraq for one reason only - to help the elected Iraqi government build a secure, democratic and stable nation - and we can and will only remain with their consent", angered Mr Wolfgang, who yelled out: "That's a lie and you know it." Mr Straw pressed on with his speech, hailing the fact that it had taken four years in post-Nazi Germany to hold elections, yet just two years in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. At this point, Mr Wolfgang, a Labour Party member of 57 years, shouted: "Nonsense." He was bundled out by stewards, to the shock of other delegates, who cried out "shame". Steve Forrest, the chairman of the Erith and Thamesmead constituency, said: "You must be joking. Don't do that, he's an old man," before stewards hauled him from his seat and dragged him from the hall. When Mr Wolfgang - who left Nazi Germany in 1937 - tried to re-enter the conference centre, his way was barred and police said they would have to stop him under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He was not charged or arrested, however. The Labour Party was last night forced to apologise to the pensioner, but a spokesman insisted it had the right to remove "people who cause a persistent disturbance". He added, however, that TV footage of the incident made it clear that the way he was removed was inappropriate. "The Labour Party will apologise to Mr Wolfgang for this," he said. Heckling ministers was a regular part of conferences in the 1970s, but under New Labour the annual event has become more stage-managed. Following his eviction, Mr Wolfgang, a vice-president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, told BBC2's Daily Conference Live: "These two toughies came round and wanted to manhandle me out." He told stewards that he would leave voluntarily as "physically, I am not too well, so I said I would follow them". Most of the stewards, who are Labour Party members, were "very nice" but a few "lend themselves to this nonsense". "It makes me feel that the people who resort to these tactics are very unsure of themselves and they are on the losing side." Linda Riordan, Labour MP for Halifax, whose attempt to debate Iraq at the conference had earlier been blocked, described the evictions as "heavy-handed", adding: "It was over the top; it was tactless and unnecessary." John Austin, MP for Erith and Thamesmead, said it wrong for people to be ejected for showing "a bit of dissent". "Wilson and Callaghan would have relished being heckled," he added. The sense of anger with the Labour leadership undoubtedly contributed to Mr Blair's defeats later in the day. Despite late-night manoeuvring and deal-making, the leadership failed to deflect the unions' attempt to upstage the Prime Minister only a day after he outlined his case for even more radical reform of the public sector ... <snip>
This article:
http://www.scotsman.com/?id=2009342005
| ![]() | --------------------------------- Blair apologizes to anti-war activist Labour member |
LONDON, Sept. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair was forced to make a "humiliating apology" on Thursday to a 82-year-old activist expelled from Labour's conference for heckling over the Iraqi war. The man, Walter Wolfgang, a party member for 57 years, was bundled out of Labour Party's annual conference in England's southcoast city of Brighton by stewards after shouting "nonsense" as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended Britain's role in the Iraq war. Blair was quoted by the Independent newspaper on Thursday as saying: "I'm really sorry about it. "I wasn't in the conference center at the time myself. It is difficult, the stewards are volunteers, they are not quite sure how to deal with a situation like that and, of course, you should deal with it differently and I'm really sorry for it and it must have been upsetting for him," said Blair. Blair later insisted that free speech was not being stifled at the Labour conference, even though there was no formal debate on the Iraq war at this week's gathering in Brighton. When asked why the 82-year-old had apparently been briefly arrested under the Terrorism Act after he was manhandled out of the conference center, Blair said: "My understanding is that his delegate's credentials showed he had been ejected before and he had to wait while that was checked out." Liberal Democrat President Simon Hughes said the incident betrayed a streak of authoritarianism in the Labour Party. "Here's a conference with the Foreign Secretary tackling some of the most controversial issues of the day and people aren't allowed to stay in their seats if they shout any protest, even restrained protest," said Hughes. The apparently heavy-handed tactics -- another delegate who protested at Wolfgang's treatment was also ejected -- dominated newspaper headlines on Thursday, far more so than Straw's speech itself. Labour's five-day conference has proved a far cry from a celebratory affair. "People criticize us over Iraq all the time," Blair said. The event has also been dominated by speculation as to when Blair will step down and who will take over from him. The prime minister has said he would not seek a fourth term in office and would step down as Labour leader and prime minister ahead of the next general election, which must take place before May 2010. But allies indicated after his speech that this may mean resignation in three or more years' time, rather than the 18 months which Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who is considered the overwhelming favourite to take over, is thought to favor. ----------------------------------- Wolfgang highlights deeper disquiet Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News Website, in Brighton | Headlines about an 82-year old Jewish escapee from the Nazis being manhandled out of Labour conference for daring to yell "nonsense" at the foreign secretary is probably not the way Tony Blair wanted to end this rally. But, for many regular conference visitors, this was far from a surprise. Ever-tightening security and a distinctly intolerant attitude towards "interruptions", as the prime minister called them, meant this was a headline waiting to happen. There have been a few examples of it in the recent past. Most notably, the prime minister was mid-speech last year when a hunting protester attempted a freestyle heckle only to be instantly grabbed by "burly bouncers" and helped to the exit. No-one who was there will forget the incongruity of the prime minister telling the man he was lucky to live in a free society where such things were allowed - just as he was being bundled out of the hall surrounded by stewards. Fury The picture of veteran peace campaigner Walter Wolfgang - "Wolfie" as he is now universally known - is far more powerful.
| The timing of this latest incident is particularly difficult for the prime minister as it comes as he is already facing opposition allegations of authoritarian tendencies | Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Ian McCartney and just about everybody else in the Labour hierarchy have now apologised to Mr Wolfgang through the media. Although Mr Blair has no plans to meet him face-to-face. Meanwhile, some delegates were expressing their fury at the man's treatment, claiming it was just the latest example of the control freakery and stage management that has characterised these events for many years now. Previous leaders of all parties once believed dealing with hecklers was all part of the job and having the skill to do so with some panache was seen as a distinct personal plus. No-one liked it, but all accepted it was one of the downsides of free speech. 'Mistakes' Those days are long gone and everything is now about control and eliminating every opportunity for the rogue heckler or unscripted and unvetted member of the public getting through to the leader. Mr Wolfgang, being welcomed back into the conference by apologetic Labour bosses, has described his treatment as trivial compared to the big "mistakes" of invading Iraq or holding nuclear weapons. "You cannot stifle debate by hiring heavies. A party has got to be open to the world. The Labour party must get back to its culture of being open to argument. Let's hope this is a step on the way back," he said. And the timing of this latest incident is particularly difficult for the prime minister as it comes as he is already facing opposition allegations of authoritarian tendencies over his proposed anti-terror legislation. When defending plans to hold suspects for three months without trial, or introduce the offence of glorifying terrorism, he insists "common sense" will prevail. Authoritarian Everyone knows what these planned laws mean and most people believe the government should place protecting the innocent far above worrying about the rights of terror suspects, he argues. But both Liberal Democrat and Conservative spokesmen have suggested that is part of the problem - that judges will have to look at the letter of the law not work on the basis that everyone knew what ministers mean when they drafted it. Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, in particular, has spoken of the government's authoritarian instincts, and the heckler incident is seen as an example of just what those instincts are or, perhaps more worrying, what happens when you draft rules that give security people their head. Veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell has already complained of precisely that after having his digital camera removed from him and all photos of the conference queues deleted. The prime minister, on the other hand, insists with some passion that the public expect him to do something in the aftermath of the 7 July bombings. Fears The security threat is higher than possibly ever before in recent memory and it is his duty and responsibility to do everything he and the security services deem necessary to protect the public. He was accused of the same dangerous tendencies , even of whipping up unnecessary fears, before 7 July, only to see those fears tragically realised. But the prime minister has nonetheless admitted there needs to be a debate about civil liberties. And he has signalled his proposals on detention and glorifying terrorism may be up for discussion and change. But this relatively small incident of Walter Wolfgang has undoubtedly played into that debate, quite possibly to the government's cost.
![Mirror.co.uk]()
30 September 2005 PEACE IS GOAL FOR REFUGEE OF NAZI BRUTALITY By Damien Fletcher WALTER Wolfgang's parents, Hermann and Erna, sent him to Britain as a boy of 13 to escape Nazi persecution of Jewish families.
He recalls: "I left Germany by train in 1937 to stay with my aunt and uncle in Surrey. I went to Ottershaw boarding school in Surrey. It was hard.
"I would go back to Germany for holidays but in 1938 I was detained and told as a Jew I must leave and never come back."
His parents joined him in Richmond in 1940, where Walter still lives today.
In 1942 Walter tried to join the British Army to fight the Nazis but was rejected on medical grounds. He then decided his future lay in working for peace, saying: "All my experiences made me want to campaign for a world without war."
Walter chose his party because: "Labour were dealing with the social problems which had caused Nazism to grow in Germany and they were the most respected socialist party in Europe."
And he was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
He says: "I started off as the secretary of the hydrogen bomb committee in the Labour Party and then I became committed to the CND movement. It had become clear to me nuclear weapons were adding to problems in the world."
Dr John Cox, 70, a former chairman of CND, says: "He was part of the group who organised our first Aldermaston protests."
Wolfgang, who never married but devoted himself to politics, retired as an accountant in 1990.
He is still active in CND. Bruce Kent, another ex-chairman, says: "His gift is go back to fundamentals of right and wrong."
-------------------------------------- Dissent in the ranks ... A lot of Labour's members are troubled by the idea that something is really not quite right. As proved by a sprinkling of introspective, angsty fringe meetings, they fret about plummeting membership, voter apathy, and that creeping sense that, for all his three-term miracles, the fact that the prime minister has never been one of the Labour family has never been more obvious (let alone the fact that the ongoing question of his departure date leaves the party in a vexed kind of limbo). In response to his insistence on what my old Trotskyist pals used to call Permanent Revolution, there is an uneasy sense that the point at which he decisively accelerates into a place that lies far from the party's values might either have arrived, or be just around the next corner. And there's another feeling, which bangs against the orchestrated limits of conference like a headache: that after eight years of knuckling under and keeping quiet, the insistence on almost military discipline has started to become dysfunctional. At the first fringe meeting I visit, a Social Market Foundation event called to discuss whether Blair has "changed Britain for good", a woman nervously takes the microphone to express her agreement with everything said from the platform by Clare Short. "I won't give my name or my constituency party," she says, "because I'm very worried if word got out, I might be expelled. Our local people are like that." On paper, the words look amusingly sarcastic. She actually follows them by bursting into tears. At the less extreme end of the party's disquiet, you find a ready market for all that talk about "renewal". The trouble is, it seems to mean all kinds of almost comically different things. In the eyes of the non-headbanger left, it seems to denote the idea of coming up with an alternative agenda to the Blairites, ensuring that it is sufficiently modernised and international to nullify any accusations of being old-fashioned, and then getting Gordon Brown on board. According to Tessa Jowell, however, it's all about something a bit more organisational. "I think it means two things," she explains. "I think it means that for this third term, how we do what we do is as important as what we do. And I think we have to be a lot more engaged with people and get out there, round the country, and show that we're listening to what people have to say and that we're prepared to respond to it." And what, I wonder, about the party? "Well, I engage with the party a lot. My colleagues engage with the party a lot. But I think we now have to invite people in, who don't want to join the party, but support what the party is trying to do." This - known as the "Supporters' Network" idea - is one of the most thrillingly New Labour wheezes of recent times. To listen to party dissidents, one of the reasons the party is atrophying is the lack of say in policy matters given to ordinary members. The proposed solution, naturally enough, is to create a new category of member, who will have no say whatsoever. The logic is gorgeous; as beautifully topsy-turvy, in fact, as the rationale behind a claim allegedly made by John Reid at a recent gathering of defence correspondents, which duly leaks on to the conference rumour mill. Apparently, you can tell the insurgents in Iraq are losing because, in their desperation, they're making the violence worse. So, there the government sits, locked behind all that concrete and steel, and hemmed in by that deadening mixture of denial and doublethink. Give or take those heckles aimed at Jack Straw and the odd defeat of the platform, conference hobbles on, quietly crystallising some of the same yawning disaffection that bedevils so much of our politics. And, just occasionally, from the darkest recesses of your memory, there comes a troubling thought: wasn't that, more than anything, what Blair came to avenge? "Cynicism is our greatest enemy," wasn't it? So now what happens? To understand the problem - that somehow, the government has come to live in a completely different dimension - you need only leave the security bubble and talk to the forlorn gaggles of protesters who occasionally turn up on the seafront. On Monday, for example, I bump into a crowd of people protesting about the loss of their pensions, and the lack of government help. Among them is 63-year-old Neil Crick. The paper company he used to work for went bust in 2002, leaving him with the dread prospect of a retirement seen out on the pinched budget provided by the state. He and his wife Christine have come down for the day from Cambridge to try to make their case, taking their positions next to an open-topped bus decorated with black balloons. It is an obvious question, but it needs asking: do they think anyone in there is listening? "Oh no," says Christine, casting a withering look at the conference compound. It's 20 or so yards across the road, though the distance suddenly seems like miles. "I'm not daft. They'll just do what they want to do." ![]()
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