MORE than 400 people packed into a public meeting in York and were urged to help prevent a "completely immoral, completely unnecessary and completely illegal" war against Iraq.

The audience at Le Meridien Hotel, Station Road, booed and hissed when York MP Hugh Bayley was mentioned, as George Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, called on him to publicly oppose the military action planned by the British and U.S. Governments.

Mr Galloway urged the crowd of young children, students and veteran campaigners to write to Mr Bayley and to join York people in London on February 15 as part in a global demonstration against war on Iraq.

Mr Galloway, who was speaking at the meeting organised by York Against The War, said on the eve of today's firefighters' strike: "Britain can afford to send 36,000 highly armed soldiers -a quarter of our army - on board our most modern warship to an impending war but we can't afford to pay our firefighters £8.50 per hour for plunging into burning buildings defending our people and our property.

"We have got money to fly around the world setting fire to other people's countries, but no money to pay a decent living wage to our firefighters defending our own - nothing can sum up more what has gone wrong with this so-called Labour Government."

Mr Galloway and fellow speakers Haleh Afshar, a professor of politics at the University of York, and Louise Hutchins, of the National Union of Students executive, spoke of the hypocrisy of Britain and the U.S. in their dealings in the Middle East and how propaganda against Muslims was being used to incite support for the war.

Mr Galloway said: "Life in Afghanistan and in Iraq is worth exactly the same price as life in Bali, New York, Washington or London.

"Not only is this war completely immoral, completely unnecessary, completely illegal and against UN charter, it will also be absolutely counter-productive. It will make the world a more dangerous place not less dangerous, it will make terrorism more of a threat not less of a threat and it will make people hate us more intensely, not less.

"If Britain does not agree to this war, then it will not happen. Even George W Bush can't go to war entirely alone and we are the people who can stop it."

For details of the demonstration in London visit www.yorkagainstthewar.org.uk.

Updated: 11:38 Tuesday, January 21, 2003