British troop! out now

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TRADE UNION leaders have had lots of practice at WORKING class youth in Northern Ireland, like working class youth in Britain, face mass unemployment, hopeless job prospects and the insult of the Youth Training Schemes and £15 a week from social security. But their problems go much deeper than that.

For all of them, unemployment is worse, Northern Irelard is the unemployment blackspot of Britain. Those who do find work are the lowest paid workers in Western Europe. Living and working conditions are comparable only to Southern Italy.

Problems

For Catholic youth in areas like West Belfast, Derry, Strabane and Newry there are additional problems. Apart from having unemployment figures between 30 and 60%, they face harassment, repression, imprisonment, torture or even murder at the hands of the British Army or the loyalist dominated 'security' forces - the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

The trade union movement is badly divi. ded by the sectarianism built into the whole of society in the Six Counties.

Prejudices

Drawing a _border between the mainly Catholic South and the mainly Protestant North was bound to create even more firm sectarian prejudices in both communities... The people who lose most from all of this are the Irish working class, and above all the women and youth.

The partition of Ireland, the deliberate creation of a sectarian state and the repression of the nationalist community were no accidents. They were not the unfortunate results of an otherwise fair settlement. They were the deliberate policies of a strong element in the British ruling class and the Unionist ruling class in the early years of this century.

Ever since 1921, the Northern Ireland state has shown that it can only exist with the help of blatant sectarian discrimination, and the physical repression of the nationalist minority.

This situation is not in the interests of Protes: tant workers in Northern Ireland. It leaves them docile before their own bosses, loyal to the capitalist state and yet more exploited than most European workers.

British intervention in Ireland is against the interests of British workers also. It fuels nationalism and chauvinism among workers here, and it encourages loyalty to the British state. The record of the Labour Party on Ireland, for example, is a disgrace and we must ensure that in future the Labour Party acts in the interests of Irish workers and not British bosses.

Solidarity

At this year's LPYS Conference, Class Fighter supported a resolution which would have committed the YS to oppose British imperialism in Ireland.

It called on the LPYS to build solidarity for the just struggle of the Republican movement and to work with the Labour Committee on Ireland to change the pro-imperialist policies of the Labour Party.

This resolution was defeated and the Militant and Daily Mail newspapers gleefully reported a speech which endorsed, wrongly, all the methods of the Provisional IRA and advocated more killing.

It has long been common practice in the British press to concentrate on unrepresentative speeches, events, etc., on the Irish issue. We should expect something better from Militant and the left, however.

The record of the British labour movement on Ireland is appalling. We are proud to be swimming against the current in the LPYS to change that record and to give support to a struggle that worries the British state so much.

Whether it's high unemployment or plastic bullets that oppress ey working class youth in Northern Ireland, the root cause and the real enemy is British imperialism. There is a struggle now going on against that enemy by the most oppressed section of Irish society.

Whatever our criticisms of the politics and methods of that struggle, British socialists have no principled option but to support it. decided to fight.

SUPPOSE THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT OFTEN GETS THIS FEELING.

Fighting to win support for the Republican struggle in the labour movement in Britain is an important part of the overall fight against imperialism and, tor working class emancipation.

It is a struggle which working class youth in Britain should join us in. PATRICK MURPHY Stockport YS and LCI