Growing voices for British withdrawal

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Hundreds of delegates packed the main hall at Conway Hall for last weekend's "forum in Northern Ireland" entitled «Voices for Withdrawal".

Though the conference had been convened via the Youth Office of the National Liberal Club, the vast bulk of the audience were labour movement delegates and visitors from a wide range anti-imperialist organisations committed to the fight for a withdrawal of British troops from Ireland.

United fight

Chairman Mick Martin (Hammersmith Trades Council) pointed out the TUC's ban on debate on treland, and called for a united fight in the labour movement on the issue.

Platform speakers included Desmond Greaves (editor of the Irish Democrat), : Anthony Coughlan (Trinity College, Dublin), playwright John Arden and Marie Mulholland, a member of Provisional Sinn Fein, speaking on behalf of the "Armagh 11"

In the period for questions a Socialist Press supporter drew applause by calling upon platform speakers to say where PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Peter Hain they stood on the 800-year Irish war of liberation.

John Arden and Marie Mulholland declared themselves firmly for an immediate withdrawal of troops.

But when the same Socialist Press supporter asked whether there were any Young Liberals present there were neither hands raised nor any sound from the hall. He then called upon the organising committee to switch its address from the Liberal Club to one connectod with the labour movement.

In the afternoon session solicitor Alistair Logan pointed to the ways in which the law and the powers of the state have been used to reinforce imperialist control.

In 1923, for instance, no less than 20% of the male population of the six counties were policemen, drawn from Protestants!

Logan went on to list the battery of measures used in recent years against the nationalist population-internment, Diplock Courts, the Emergency Provisions Act, and the "Prevention of Terrorism" Act. "an intelligence gathering act" under which only 1% of detainees are charged.

The conference loudly applauded a message from play, wright Margaretta D'Árcy, currently imprisoned for 3 months after refusing to pay a fine following her arrest outside Armagh Gaol.

Former army captain Michael Biggs underlined the fact that the British Army are the real "terrorists" at work in the six counties and that the media reports are censored to suppress the real situation.

It is necessary to fight in Trades Councils, trade unions and to press Labour MPs to adopt a policy of withdrawal, he argued.

Peter Hain, calling on delegates to "build a momentum for withdrawal", emphasised that Britain's presence in Ireland actually, reinforced sectarian divisions: but he went on to oppose the demand for immediate withdrawal of troops.

"We must not demand Troops out Now, although I support it. We need a broad, credible campaign" , argued the former Young Liberal-failing to grasp that the absence of non-labour movement contingents at the conference or on last August's Young Liberals demonstration prove that there is no uncommitted "middle ground" to be won to a broad campaign' on the question of Ireland.

As if to underline the point, Ruth Addison, a former chairman of the Young Liberals, presented a platform speech which warned that repression in Ireland brought the threat of repression in "our country" too!

So long as the organisers insist on operating in tandem with the Liberals, they will pull back from the necessarily sharp fight for the policy of immeaiate withdrawal of British troops.

A Workers Power leaflet distributed at the conference correctly challenged the failure to mount any struggle whatever in the labour movement for its avowed intention last year of building:

"a genuine movement inside the British working class which can put real muscles into the struggle for a complete British withdrawal, political, economic, military":

Instead the SWP, in harness with Young Liberals, has now thrown its weight behind the general 'human rights' demands of the "Charter 80" campaign for political status for the republican prisoners in the 'H' Blocks-introduced at the conference by pacifist Pat Arrowsmith.

While Charter 80 should be supported by all socialists, it must be taken up in the context of a tenacious fight to mobilise the strength of the labour movement in action to force the immediate withdrawal of British troops from the six counties of This is the importance of the ongoing campaign by Tameside Trades Council against its disaffiliation by the TUC and for the policies of troops out now, self determination for the Irish people, repeal of the PTA and political status to Irish PoWs.

Further details can be obtained from D. Hallsw orth, 186, Kings Road, Ashton-u nderLyne, Lancashire.

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Socialist Workers Party, with its alleged 4,500 members, on its