Troops Out of Ireland!

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Be thousands of demon- Tronns Ont of Treland' which ap- tactics. Our task is to build an ween the Southern government While thousands of demonrators in Derry and London • the first weekend in reblary remembered those murdered by British soldiers n Bloody Sunday four years 50, the Tory leaders have *gun to build up pressure for more 'positive' role for the hoops in 1976. 'It was disclosed in the Daily Elegraph of 6th February that Dry front bench spokesmen Airey tave and Biggs Davidson had rent several days observing the perations of the army in South rmagh. Their report, which no subt reflects the views of senior ficers, says that too much emtasis has been placed on keeping a Do profile in the area. This is a call for more mass searches Id other forms of harrassment of le nationalist population.

STEPPED UP

With the increasing inability of titish imperialism to discover any ¡olitical' solution in Northern Iread, there can be no question but at repression by the troops will • stepped up. It has thus become En more urgent to fight in the forking class movement throughat Ireland and Britain to force out le troops.

As part of this struggle the SL pw considers it necessary to corct the wrong positions contained the article 'Unite to Force Troops Out of Ireland' which appeared in Socialist Press 25 (dated 14th January).

Partly acting on wrong information, and through muddled formulations, the article welcomed the large Catholic-Protestant demonstrations protesting about 'sectarian killings' in Armagh, and went on to call for joint protestant-catholic workers' defence patrols with the aim of preventing sectarian murders' MISTAKE In saying this we made the mistake of accepting the divisions created by imperialism, and expressing the need for workers unity only within those limits.

In fact it is vital to • begin from the needs of the whole of the Irish working class, North and South, and the tasks of the unfinished national revolution.

At the same time, we implied that the 'sectarianism' of both sides can be equated. Socialists, however, have to make a distinction between the outbursts of the oppressed, and the sectarian actions of the oppresSOTS.

In Ireland, the UVF and UDA terror gangs, which have support among Protestant workers, act in general as agents of imperialism. The IRA, on the other hand, for all their radically false politics, We must therefore place ourselves unconditionally in the camp of the anti-imperialist forces while reserving our complete right to criticise tactics. Our task is to build an alternative revolutionary leadership within that camp which will take the national liberation of Ireland through to its end.

It was on this basis that we participated in the Bloody Sunday commemoration demonstration held in London on 1st February, advocating our policies by calling for the immediate withdrawal of British troops and self-determination for the Irish people.

Today it is essential to put forward a: programme of action which can unite Irish workers with a class struggle method of fighting for national liberation.

The starting point is the struggle for democratic rights. This must include complete opposition to the Special Powers Act in the North, and measures such as the Criminal Jurisdiction Bill in the South indict latter proposal aims to people in the Republic for "crimes' committed in the North, thus introducing a . United Ireland for oppression only'.

SOLDIERS RIGHTS

Workers must demand that all soldiers, whether British or Irish, nave the right to form trade unions, where there must be freedom of propaganda for all working class and republican tendencies.

Relying on their own strength, the working class should begin to fight for control of transport and strategic industries so as to put a stop to military collaboration between the Southern British troops.

Workers must also demand that the books of the multinational firms that super-exploit the Irish people should be opened to their elected representatives. They must not only expose their profits and plans, but must prepare the way for nationalisation of these industries under workers management.

CONTROL

In order to prevent the murderous attacks by loyalist gangs on the Catholic population, al anti-imperialist forces, including the various wings of the IRA, must work under the democratic control of the nationalist masses.

The fight around such demands puts the working class on the offensive, makes , it possible for them to express their power in such a way as to begin to organise a genuinely independent Irish Workers Republic with the eviction of foreign troops.

It is of course the case that all workers in Ireland, whatever their political or religious opinions, are faced with vicious attacks on their wages and their right to work. However, no struggles around wages and jobs will be successful unless it goes to the heart of the matter: imperialist domination of Ireland.

We have to explain to the Protestant workers of the North that as long as they remain under the domination of the loyalist gentry, they will not be able to must be built to attacks on democratic rights contained in such measures as the so-called 'Prevention of Terrorism' Act. This has given the police enormous and arbitrary powels which have already been unsparingly used against republicans, socialists and trade unionists.

These laws are directly opposed to the interests of British workers. Nor are their interests served by having republicans locked in British jails.

TASK

The urgent task of the day for us in Britain is to build a movement within the working class that is strong enough to foree the troops out of Ireland at once. From this point of view, the lowest common denominator' politics of the organisers of the February Ist demonstration in London, and particularly of the IMG who predominated there, was an unprincipled diversion.

It is not a question of seeking to trick the working licies in an advocating our real policies underhand way, but stating clearly and truthfully how we see the role of British imperialism in Ireland, and what we see as the next step that has to be taken to defeat it.