Tony Blair

            In the current political climate, the presence of social movements is almost universally felt. Controversial legislation concerning university "top-up fees" has provoked an organised response from the National Union of Students and their members across the country in the form of demonstration marches through the capital. The possible expansion of GM crops in the UK has resulted in several factions of independent farmers and non-governmental institutions, Greenpeace for example, organising their own forms of protest. In the case of GM crops, there has been some measure of success; many local councils, bowing to community pressure, have introduced a GM-free zone in areas under their dominion. In the case of the university "top-up" fees, it looks increasingly likely that the student action failed and that the legislation will be passed. .
             In much the same way, the protest against war in Iraq has had little direct success. But this movement can be accorded some measure of success if judged by other factors. As a worldwide social movement it has eclipsed all others and united like-minded people in an unprecedented series of global displays of solidarity. In the autumn of 2003, the extraordinary dimensions of this global movement have led a journalist of the New York Times to describe it as the "world's newest superpower.".
             The fact that the global peace movement should be referred to with a term usually reserved for geopolitical bodies with massive economic, political and military resources like the USA is evidence of the massive support that it has been afforded. Unprecedented numbers of people turned up to march through the streets of major world cities in February 2003. Possibly more than two million people were present at the London march, a figure that suggests that every street in the UK was represented.