New failure for Humphrey Who

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NOW! RELAND disastrous Tory Minis Humphrey last week.

Atkins-a Tory back chapter in the career of the ter for Torture, Atkins, opened nobody from the woods-had been rudely catapulted into the ime-* light by the surprise demolition. of his predecessor, the unlamented Airey Neave.

• Stepping into the shoes of, Labour's Torture Chief Royl Mason, Atkins immediately found himself at the centre of a growing worldwide outcry against the barbarity of British repression in the six counties of Ireiand.

Top American bourgeois! politicians in particular began to pressurise their British imperialist colleagues to adopt more subtle techniques for contain-! ing the liberation struggle. This pressure brought a ban on US 00:. arms sales to the sectarian RUC.

Hugh Carey Pooposed nat •roooser party" talks on a bourgeois democratic solution to the waronly to be rebuffed by Atkins.

He realised that for the British imperialists to engage in any talks at all would appear to the Loyalists as a sure sign of a forthcoming "sellout" to the republican movement, which was itself clearly gaining in strength, fighting capacity and mass support both in the North and in the 26 counties.

Mountbatten

The summer brought the dramatic dramatic. execution of Lord Mountbatten and the ambush of 18 soldiers at Warrenpoint-the biggest single military defeat for the British army since Korea.

In Britain itself defeatist elements of the capitalist class began to voice concern at the Belfast. poor prospects and high ci ist of militarily winning the war -and spearheaded a. "troops out" move at the Liberal conference.

The Labour Party conference, too, indicated a growing current fighting within the labour movement for the immediate withdrawal of troops -though still resolutely opposed by pro-imperialist Party and TUC leaders.

With mounting pressure from all sides, Atkins felt obliged to appear to do something.

So last week in an absurd public relations exercise he announced to Parliament that he was proposing to convene a conference of 'the main parties in the North" to discuss transfer of powers from London to He knew before he spoke that the scheme was a non-starter.

The divided Unionist camp united in rejecting his proposais -as did even the careerist touts of Gerry Fitt's SDLP.

This left Atkins talking to himself.

And of course the key "party" involved • (but never even invited to participate)-the Provisional IRA-has declared its response in practice, as the war goes on to drive the British army from the six counties.

The British working | class must take a firm stand in this war for the defeat of British imperialism, the withdrawal of British troops and the self-determination of the Irish people as the basis for an Irish workers' republic.

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