Now! Ira Bombs Not Enough

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demanding restoration of Pol starus to republican prisoners The war against British imperialist oppression of the Irish people goes on!

This is the unmistakeable message of the coordinated series of major bombings carried out by the IRA in the last three weeks, linked to the mobilisation of mass demonstrations both in Britain and the Six Counties demanding the restoration of political status republican prisoners of war.

The new upsurge comes after a period in which a shortage of explosives and reorganisation within the IRA ranks had left the main focus of the Irish struggle as the heroic blanket' protest by the 350 prisoners in 'H' Block, Long Kesh and the women in Armagh Jail:

The bombings, according to Republican News, are seen as:

''a means of struggle (unique in Western Europe) which has far-reaching political effects. It challenges the Brits who claim to be in control of the Six Counties, and successes show to the world the instability of the State.

"Behind all those IRA bombs is a structure of nationalist sympathy and support, and we know that politically the bombs destabilise and cause crises for Loyalism.

"Roy Mason, presentiy on an investment tour in America, will look ridiculous trying to sell the • British-occupied Six Counties as a peaceful land where things are "returning to normal" and where the IRA are "beaten"."

We have no quarrel with the IRA's absolute right to fight British imperialism and to use such tactics, which they feel are the best way of driving British troops out of Ireland.

But though these methods undoubtedly • draw upon and reflect a strong base of support amongst the Catholic minority in the North, they inevitably exclude the participation of the working class in the struggle against British imperialism.

Alternative

The courage and sacrifice of a few is seen as an alternative to patient agitation and political mobilisation of the masses, who have recently shown themselves willing to take up issues relating to the national struggle.

The near-death during a hunger strike of republican frame-up victim Willie Gallacher PHOTO: Laurence Sparham, IFL additional working class forces around the fight for an immediate withdrawal of the troops: and for socialist policies to provide jobs and decent living standards.

' Such policies are relevant both in the North of Ireland and in the struggle against Lynch's capitalist regime in the South.

But instead, the IRA's approach relegates the militant last week Irish working class to the role of passive spectator to the clandestine activities of an elite.

The IRA have certainly shown that the Irish war of liberation cannot be subdued by army repression, arrests, tortures or SAS murders.

But their latest campaign also indicates the severe crisis of political leadership which acts to retard the successful completion of the Irish revolution.

A Trotskyist party must be built in Ireland to answer this crisis and offer a clear way forward.

British workers must also play a role in furthering the struggle in Ireland, taking up › the fight for the restoration of political status, for the rem oval of Labour's torture chief. Roy COKMITTEE Mason and the reactionary Callaghan cabinet, am action concrete solidarity including the blacking off military supplies to the British army of occupation in Ireland, as part of the fight for the complete withdrawal of British troops. system will not only take away influence in the local student bodies but the "negotiating" procedure is to be through a national council composed of one-third NUS representatives, Whilst agreeing with the conclusions of the front page article on the Thorpe case (Socialist Press 127), that this is more than simply another scandal and that the evidence being heard is exposing a great deal about our so-called 'democracy', ! do feel that there was an important ommission in the article.

The article states that in the same way as the media turned the Watergate scandal into the indictment of one man so now, "the Thorpe case is being focused on one party and one or two politicians", • Presumably, though, another important facet of this 'scandal' for the media is the alleged homosexual relationship between Thorpe and Scott.

This provides another excellent opportunity for the media to associate homosexuality with the seedy underworld dealings within what you refer to, perhaps rather moralistically as "the sewer of bourgeois democracy"

While I do not assume that readers of Socialist Press will make a similar association I do think that it is important that we express our opposition to the sensationalising of alleged 'homosexual practices' which serve only to further prejudice and bigotry in order to uphold bourgeois sexual morality that furthers the existence of the family as a unit.

We recognise that gays under capitalism are an appressed minority and that their oppres sion in its many forms, is maintained in order that, under the guise of notions of deviance and riormality, the family is upheld as an economic unit to serve capitalism.

While we recognise • as socialists that under capitalism the liberation of gays can only be at the level of reforms-overturning the 'over-21' age of consent.. for male homosexuals and removing homosexuality from the World Health Organ-