New Tuc Bid to Gag Debate on Ireland

Scan page 3

For those who believe in the right of nations to self-determination, and who oppose colonial oppression, the alliance between the Labour leaders and the Tories on the question of Ireland is a major scandal.

The "bi-partisan" policy implemented by successive Labour and Tory governments centres on repression of the anti-imperialist struggle in the six counties of Ireland through a combination of. military and police terror, Loyalist paramilitary violence and legislation designed to outlaw the republican movement. All this is reinforced by tacit and open press censorship and repressive laws in Britain such as the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act.

But while the defence of such a policy has been voiced chiefly by Labour politicians, they have rested for support not on rank and file Labour Party members but on the British trade union bureaucracy. - Not a single leading union official in Britain has taken up or fought for a policy of withdrawing British troops from Ireland. Even at the height of last year's hunger strikes by republican prisoners in Long Kesh demanding political status, only a handful of British union leaders lent their signatures to the Charter 80 petition supporting their five demands.

Witch-hunt

within their own unions and through the General Council of the TUC, union bureaucrats have been ready and willing to witch-hunt socialists and militants who have fought for a full debate on the war of liberation underway in Ireland.

Last year saw such witch-hunts within the TGWU, CPSA and ASLEF-and the disaffiliation of Tameside Trades Council by the TUC for the "crime" of convening a labour movement conference on Ireland.

: The campaign against this disaffiliation won widespread support-with around 50 Trades Councils and other union bodies backing a call for Tameside's reinstatement. But the fight at the TUC Congress was derailed by the NUJ delegation, who reneged on their official mandate to move reference back of that section of the General Council report.

Encouraged by this, and egged on by Stalinists of the Communist Party (who oppose the struggle against British imperialism in Ireland and instead call on the British capitalists to grant a "Bill of Rights" to the Irish people in the six counties) the TUC has now launched a new, extended witch-hunt.

Five trades councils that have sponsored a labour movement conference on Ireland convened by the Smash the Prevention of Terrorism Act Campaign' have been threatened with Tameside-style disaffiliation.

A circular has been sent to all trades councils telling them not to support the conferencesince it challenges the TUC's own pro-imperialist policy.

Crude attempt

Despite hypocritical statements to the contrary, this is simply a further crude attempt by the TUC leaders to muzzle discussion on Ireland within the labour movement-a discussion which they know could only further discredit their own wretched so-called "Better Life for All Campaign"

Socialist Press has political differences with the Revolutionary Communist Tendency who run the Smash the PTA Campaign: We disagree in particular with their uncritical support to the republican movement, and their slap-dash use of slogans' such as "Bring the War to Britain" which simply confuse and alienate militants and socialists.

But we urge readers and supporters to fight within their unions for maximum opposition to this latest move by the TUC to suppress legitimate political discussion within the labour movement and bureaucratically upholá a bankrupt and reactionary policy on Ireland.

This fight is essential if support is to be widened for the. demands for immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and self-determination for the Irish people.

The conference-appropriately entitled "TUC Hands off Ireland" is at Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry on March 14. Details are avalable from SPIAC, BM RCT, London wC1V 6xx. NOW!

MERSEYSIDE

FACTORY CLOSURES Fisher Bendix Leyland Dunlop Meccano why campaigns vero lost d how thoy can bo fonet NE LIni A WSL Pamptto!, Price 27p including postage from WSL, IM Box 5277, Londo WCIV 6XX