It is too charitable to say that George Brown was responding to indignation in the Labour Party when he mide his peace initiative: the evidence points to a more sinister explanation. Accomling to the January 2nd Times, "President Johnson has once again managed to vindicate his hard line in Vietnam...He was assisted in part, perhaps unwittingly, by Britain. Whatever the purpose of the peace proposal, the failure of the British Government to dissociate themselves again from the bombing made it a great deal easier for the President to defend it.. The British proposal helped...in getting the President out of a rather awkward corner. There is no reason to assume... that he does not want peace talks, but e hi te .." (our emphasis throughout).
Combined with the granting of the use of Hong Kong as a base, these facts show the revolting hypocrisy of George Brown's "peace" effort. No wonder the Guardian referred to it as a "clay pigeon" rather than a dove of peace. There are other aspects, too: the Wilson Government is acting as the cover for American bombing of civilian targets in the name of Labour in complete contradiction to the Fire Brigades' resolution which was passed at the 1968 Labour Party conference, In an attempt to carry out this policy, Brown lied to the House of Commons just before the Christmas recess. The pressure should be developed to compel Brown to resign — he is exposed as a liar and he flies in the face of official Labour Party policy. The January 14th demonstration called by the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign must be the start of a campaign to force his resignation and a complete change in Government policy, the only real solution,