Fianna Fail plays nationalist card in bid for poll success

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Journalists' 'no' to offer, no action.

"I condemn the Provisional IRA and all their activities"

With these succinct and memorable words to the press, Ireland's new so-called "republican" Prime Minister Charles Haughey stepped easily into the still-warm shoes of retiring British puppet Jack Lynch.

Despite media speculation that Haughey might change Lynch's position of cringing subservience to British imperialism and acceptance of the partition 'of Ireland, the new Prime Minister made it clear that he would maintain the latest agreements on cross-border "security" drawn up between Lynch and Thatcher.

And though he may make a few more noises on the ruling Fianna Fail Party's policy of calling for a British declaration of intent to withdraw from the Provincial journalists have been urged by their chapel leaderships to reject a 14.5% offer from the Newspaper Society.

The journalists-who struck for seven weeks last year to drag the final offer up to the same level as has been offered this year-do not only face a cut in their standards of living.

The employers have thrown out - every single other claim on hours, holidays and other issues. On maternity/paternity pay the Newspaper Society has arrogantly told the negotiators that if the Government changes the law to attack women's righis, then the Newspaper Society want the right to unilaterally worsen their conditions in the agreement.

But the stand taken at a meeting in London at the weekend against the offer has a distinctly hollow ring.

The negotiators urged FoCs not . to discuss industrial action when discussing the offer which is due to be implemented from January Mike Bower, regional occupied no evider anism" w than this rhetoric.

six counties, there 1s ce that his republicill extend any further smattering of green Assistance There is no doubt however that with nationalist sentiment running strong in the South, the 1970 court case in which Haughey was accused-and acquitted-of gun-running for the IRA materially assisted him to clinch a six-vote victory in the leadership election over his more wooden rival George Colley.

Fianna Fail itself has been in sorry disarray following a disaster in the European elections and a catastrophic defeat in the Cork by-election.

Worried FF politicians no doubt hope that Haughey's charisma and nationalist image organiser, told the meeting that he wanted unanimous rejection by chapels even if they were not prepared to take action.

Proposals that the discussion by chapels should include discussions about action were heavily defeated and a proposal from Peter Molntyre (Oxford) that chapels should be asked for a mandate to call a fresh meeting with strike action an alternative on the agenda failed to get a seconder.

Not fooled The membership which well knows that nothing is won without a fight, is unlikely " to be fooled.

Chapels for whom the seven week strike is still too recent a memory are liable to reject an approach which pretends that action can be hived off to a separate discussion.

Many chapels have already reported big votes against acceptance and the role of the leadership should now be to fight for strike action as the only possible means to win the 30% claim, shorter hours, longer holidays and improved maternity leave. can retrieve a measure of electoral popularity that Lynch's reactionary economic policies and deals with imperialism have helped to sacrifice.

But of course Haughey, a multi-millionaire and a property owner, has like other Irish capitalists a. personal interest in restraining the revolutionary struggle in the six counties and anti-imperialist movements" in the so-called "Free State".

At present the principal target of such struggles is the ousting of British imperialism from the occupied North.

But Haughey, his fellow Irish capitalists, and the imperialists know full well that were this to be accomplished by mass action of the Irish working class and small farmers, the dynamic of the struggle would lead in the direction of the expropriation of capitalist exploiters and landlords and the establishment of a By and large the same people who opposed last year's strike and who were dragged into it by the membership have again held sway over the delegate meeting.

But honest militants who declared themselves ready to strike again this year, were given precious little direction. In a craven capitulation to what they call "ine ship mood of the memberJournalists' Charter put out a leaflet calling for a work to rule.

The leaflet noted that the one thing the Newspaper Society were terrified of this year was a repeat performance of last year's strike, and concluded that a work to rule could get more out of them!

Work to rules have a notorious history in the union of ineffectiveness and have led on numerous occasions to strikes over victimisations which bury the original aim of the action.

There can be no concessions to 'moods' . Only a strike can protect the standard of livling of the membership. That is what militants must fight for. socialist united Ireland.

It is to forestall such an eventuality and stem all forms of revolutionary struggle that the British army maintains military rule in the North, and the Irish state machinery operates a vicious battery of repressive legislation against the republican and socialist movement.

Two-faced Yet while in practice doing everything possible to oppose the national struggle, the Fianna Fail leaders-political descendants of two faced "nationalist" compromiser De Valera-still use the fraudulent image of Irish nationalism as a means of securing popular electoral As the unrivalled leader of the Fianna Fail De Valera balanced for decades on nationalist rhetoric (based on his republican activities of 1916) with the most sordid back-door deals with British imperialism and clerical reaction in order artfully to bridge the divide over the six county partition that had erupted into the bitter civil war of 1922.

Apron strings

The whole of Irish history has shown that the national struggle cannot be carried through by capitalist politicians -who are themselves tied by their class interests to the apron strings of imperialism.

Nor can it be carried through under the leadership of forces which-like the republican movement-fail to recognise the necessity of mobilising the working class, North and South, in the struggle for national liberation and socialist revolution.

For all their talk of establishing a "decentralised socialist republic" , Sinn Fein leaders have only recently re-emphasised their opposition to Marxism.

In major interview published in Republican News (November 3) Sinn Fein Vice IDIOI Inor

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POLITICAL PRISONERS ARELYING NAKED INLONGKESH IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS