Tory return will not. IRELAND aid Irish struggle

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soys: paid Workers PAY NUPE members lobby during low pay struggle The nauseating spectacle of Labour's entire National Executive standing for a minute's silence in honour of dead imperialist spokesman Airey Neave last week fittingly summed up the Party's unashamedly reactionary position on Ireland.

Not one of the NEC-which includes ageing LPYS chairman and Militant' supporter Phil Frampton-has at any point shown a glimmer of solidarity with or concern for the dozens of Irish workers gunned down, or the hundreds tortured, framed-up and imprisoned by Roy Mason's brutal military terror in the occupied six counties of Ireland.

Long Kesh The NEC has remained supremely unconcerned at the valiant three-year struggle by 400 republican prisoners in the Long Kesh concentration camp, who are fighting under the most appalling conditions for the restoration of Prisoner of War status stripped from them by Mason in 1976.

And there has been no sign of any fight by the NEC members for the repeal of the so-called "Prevention of Terror. ism Act which has been used to detain without charge over 3,500 mainly Irish people.

Squalid record

This squalid record of Labour's oppression and repression in Ireland has already begun to bear fruit in the emergence of widespread hostility to Labour among Irish workers-a hostility which opportunists within the Liberal Party have not been slow to exploit.

The Young Liberals clearly hoping to net added votes for their adult colleagues in Britain's second-string capitalist party, have given notice of a demonstration on August 12 calling for a British withdrawal from the North of Ireland.

Prominent Liberal politician Cyril Smith is among those that have already signed the declaration for the demonstration. Top Liberal John Pardoe has also spoken in favour of British withdrawal.

There is speculation that this two-faced and populist policy -while Liberal leader Steel holds the line for existing British imperialist strategy in Irelandwas a factor in the big swing towards the Liberals in the Edge Hill by election.

Shysters

But while the Liberals struggle to tart up their party's image as a group of corrupt, unsuccessful business shysters, other political groups are intervening on the Irish question against Labour in the General Election.

The Irish Civil Rights AssocMarch backs H Block prisoners iation has declared its intention to stand candidates against Labour in marginal constituencies, and to urge Irish people elsewhere to abstain.

The Irish National Party has also already completed a manifesto calling for a British withdrawal-but combining this with reactionary anti-abortion movement The way forward in the struggle to force British troops out of Ireland centrally requires the mobilisation of the British labour movement in opposition to the Callaghan-Healey-Mason To allow the reelection of a Tory government-however much this is the resuit of Labour's policies-would not only impede this struggle but would undoubtedly, in the wake of Neave's execution, maintain and even strengthen tne repression in the six counties.

This is why Irish workers must not be diverted off into single issue protest votes, but Dear Editor, This is my analysis of the fight for the £60 pay claim for brothers and sisters working in the Health Service, especially the hospital workers.

The ongoing action, which we had been told, we would be fighting for, was for a 35 hour week and four PHOTO: Derek Speirs. IFL Mason join with their English brothers and sisters in the fight to return a Labour government and build a socialist alternative to the present pro-imperialist Labour leaders. fulfil their declared commitments.

If this is so is it not time to have some other tier of officers to liaise with the branches?

Even when officers do condescend to come to meetings with shop stewards and secretaries they try to, make the shop stewards look like children who should not be so naughty and must now listen to Papa.

I feel the time has now arrived, that we who are the union should tell our paid employees to "stand up and be counted" and to take forward the policies which the members are asking them to implement.

It is aiso time tor certain lay officers to run the branches for the benefit of all their members and not for the chosen few.

If Branch Secretaries believe in what they are about, they must realise that the Branch to which they are elected must come first because members put their trust in them.

If they feel they must wheel and deal and spread themselves in other areas, then for the sake of their members, they should relinLOW €60 says NEED 52 aMinimuns NOW suits wage SeLon HARRY GOURLAY, Labour MP for Kirkcaldy has launched his election campaign in fine Tory style-calling for the death penalty for terrorists.

In a hysterical outburst he declared that:

"One must accept that they act like madmen. In such circumstances the penalty of capital punishment would be: more fitting than an attempt at rehabilitation." quish their positions and resign.

Then at least someone else who would have the members' interests at heart, might get the chance to do something constructive for them.

I will finish by saying to these people, stop climbing on the backs of ordinary working people to further your own interests.

If you can't help your members, then please move on!

Yours fraternally, Tom O'Regan NUPE Branch Chairman, Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster South District Health Branch.

The record of the public sector union leaders during the recent dispute has clearly shown their unwillingness to lead a serious fight for the full claim.

The Workers Socialist League is convinced that rather than appeal to such leaders' to make way for those who will fight, only a most determined effort to expose these bureaucrats in front of their member. ship coupled with a political programme around which the membership can be mobilised will create the conditions for their removal.

END PHOTO: Mark Rusher, IFL

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OKMITTEE PHOTO: Laurence Sparham, IFL PHOTO

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