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While it is the oppressed Catholic minority in the six counties of Ireland that suffers the full brunt of military and police repression, the worst unemployment and the worst housing the "privileged" Protestant working class.

The latest spending cuts announced by the Tory government include the axing of 2,000 jobs at the key Harland and Woolf shipyards-virtually all of whor will be Protestant workers.

And while masquerading as the political allies of the Loyalist population, the Tories will be seeing to it that the occupied "province" also suffers its full share of social service, health and education cutsthrowing thousands more onto the dole queues.

Profitable

• The highly profitable face of unemployment and repression in the six counties was revealed last week by a report of the Low Pay Unit.

This showed that:

*14,000 full time workers in the six counties are on a wage £40 below the "poverty line"

*44% of the working population-140,000 people-earn less than £60 per week.

*The proportion of families on benefits is four times that in Britain.

*Minimum wage levels are anything up to £15-£20 below comparable rates in Britain.

While Protestant workers plainly feel themselves privileged in relation to their unemployed and oppressed Catholic brothers and sisters, it is clear that the sectarian divisions perpetuated by British imperialism and the mass unem. ployment that is endemic to the North combine to depress wages far below even the low standard of living faced by millions of workers in Britain.

But of course there is no way that these-obstacles can be overcome without removing their prime cause-the preservation of imperialist rule in the North and the sectarian six-county statelet itself The working class movement in the South has for its part time and again shown itself ready: and willing to struggle against Lynch's pro-imperialist regime in defence of jobs, living standards and basic rights-but found itself blocked by bureaucratic union leaders.

The lack of any credible political "solution" means that British capitalism sees military rule and the exacerbation of sectarian divisions in the North as the only strategy. for stemming rising struggles which they fear could otherwise lead into a fight for a united Irish workers' republic.

Yet it is only when the Protestant workers in the North begin to grasp the extent to which their "loyalty" to British imperialism is producing a rod for their own backs in the form of cuts, unemployment and low wages that there is any hope of them making the necessary political break from the politics of Paisleyite reaction.

Such a development requires also the continued political strengthening of the anti-imperialist struggle in the North and the emergence of struggles in the South that confront both Lynch's capitalist regime and the stranglehold of the Roman Catholic Church.

Shake off

A clear political perspective, through which the Irish working class and small farmers can struggle for their independent interests and shake off the savage hold of imperialism North and South, is vitally needed.

Such a movement cannot be built on the limited guerrillaist politics of the Provisionals, despite their courageous struggle against the British Army.

A conscious Trotskyist programme and leadership is needed.

But it would certainly draw the most advanced militants 'who at present are drawn towards the Provisionals as the cily forces seen to be leading the struggle against imperialism.

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