[Neil Kinnock, one of the 'left' MPs who…]
Socialist Press1977 1977-12-21Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 5 →
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Neil Kinnock, one of the 'left' MPs who has trumpeted his 'support' for the firemen's case, faced a tricky problem last Wednesday.
While liberal MPs held what turned out to be a mock debate about whether to maintain the Coalition, Kinnock was told for realised) that his job was to go out and do his bit to force the 10% down the throats of the firemen.
So Kinnock turned up on a strong demonstration of several hundred firemen from South-West London.
After a march from Batter1*7 11rally.
Though he never uttered the words, there could have been no doubt in the mind of anyone listening to him, that what he was saying was 'Get back to work' The way Kinnock put it was to say that the firemen 'had convinced the nation' that the strike had been fully vindicated' and had "won' because the government offer was one which would have been 'unthinkable four weeks ago' Firemen he said had to "Tealise when they had won? nters that no one failed to see that what this particular form of "left" double-talk meant was 'realise that you've lost.
The reception of other speeches by FBU members showed that the firemen at the rally knew well enough that they had not lost; nor had they yet won, with an ofter which gave them not a single penny more than the last one.
They saw that to win they had to be prepared to accept a head-on clash with the government which Kinnock cringingly helps to keep
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Page б PART 8 complained of Sinn Fein's ingratitude in so quickly forgetting that it was through the sacrifices of labour that they were raised to power.
But in all this there was no rupture with the past. War is the continuation of politics by different means and the constitutional and parliamentary cooperation that Johnson and O'Brien-on behalf of labour-lent Sinn Fein was only the continuation of the military cooperation that Connolly had given the nationalist Volunteers.
Withdraw
While O'Brien thought that Labour could bide its time, withdraw from its self-imposed subordinate position at a propitious moment and reap an electoral harvest, Connolly too had believed it possible that the Citizen Army, the first Red Guard of Europe, could both merge forces with the nationalists