[The struggle against British military repression of the…]

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The struggle against British military repression of the Irish people is gathering strength in the British labour movement.

One recent indicator of this was the vocal support at the Labour Party Special Conference for those delegates who challenged the alliance between the Labour leadership and the Tories over the war in Ireland.

A new bulletin "Labour and Ireland". • produced by the newly-formed Labour Committee on Ireland, hammered home to all delegates the fact that no less than 44 constituency parties were represented at its founding conference, which endorsed a model resolution for the 1980 conference calling on the next Labour government to, "immediately begin" what it calls "the process" of a full "political and military withdrawal" from Ireland.

Another indicator strong support won on the same day by lobbyers outside the conference of Trades Councils, protesting at the TUC disaffiliation of Tameside Trades Council for convening a labour movement conference on Ireland.

Opposed

This bureaucratic attempt to censor discussion of Ireland in the labour movement has now been opposed by a growing list of trade union and labour movement bodies-and thus seems likely to unleash the very sort of discussion the TUC was attempting to suppress!

Meanwhile the NUJ is now. committed to convene a labour movement conference on media censorship of the war in Ireland.

Elsewhere, a "Charter 80" in solidarity with the Irish republican prisoners still engaged in their heroic fouryear "blanket" protest in the 'H' Blocks of the Long Kesh concentration camp in Northern Ireland, has ben launched by a group of supporters including Ivan Hartal, a socialist dissident from the Czech "Charter 77" grouping.

The Charter-now being circulated throughout the labour movement-spells out the basic demands for the restoration of the political status stripped from republican prisoners by the Labour government in 1976 in a vain effort to browbeat the nationalists into submission.

In the midst of these developments another conference "Voices for Withdrawal" has been organised by a wide range of sponsors and based, rather ironically, at the National Liberal Club.

The Liberal Party of course like both the Labour and Tory parties supports the continued British military occupation of the six counties of the North of Ireland: but the Young Liberals have not been slow to recognise the opportunity to project a "radical" and 'independent" image by adopting a general call for a British "withdrawal"

A march convened under this slogan last autumn demonstrated precisely how slender is the "middle ground" support to whom the Young Liberals' pacifist demand is addressed.

Unlike almost any other international question, a stand in opposition to the war in Ireland" demands in reality a stand against the British ruling class.

Though opinion polls have repeatedly shown a majority of British voters opposed to the troops remaining in Ireland, only the most conscious layers can generally be mobilised on a demonstration to that effect: and few of them are so confused as to be firmly committed to the Young Liberals.

In the event the "Troops Out Now!" contingent on the march last August far outnumbered the Liberals.

A conference is rather different from a demonstration, however. It is able to convey much more information to forces possibly only beginning to grasp the importance of the war in It offers the possibility of a measure of debate over policy and programme. The Voices for Withdrawal' conference can in this way make a contribution to the struggle against "bi-partisan" and pro-imperialist This policy was formulated into a petition, which has met with a mass and enthusiastic response in the Cowley Plant.

The LAC Conference therefore called for this petition to be extended into the other plants and developed in a mass way throughout BL in order to directly involve the mass of workers in the struggle for democratic procedures.

This campaign would go alongside the preparation for the opening of the wage negotiations in August. positions within the labour movement.

But in angling towards hopes of a "broad" , all-embracing, cross class campaign for a withdrawal of British troops it offers workers nothing but hollow illusions.

It is towards the increasingly responsive ranks of the trade union and labour movement that the fight must be directed, in conflict with the existing bureaucratic leaderships.

*Troops out NOW! the question of the five grade structure and no recognition of the "appeals procedure" of May Full support must be mobilised to fight any victimisations.

'On jobs, the • conference called for continuing opposition to the Edwardes plan-despite the impending switch by the TGWU to support it. Voluntary redundancy must be opposed and where redundancies are forced in, vacancies must be filled and manning standards defended.

In arguing for a policy of