The Irish in Britain - an Untapped Reservoir

An article by our British correspondent, Navigator The Insh community in Britain is the largest and, second to probably only the Jews, the longest established of the immigrant populations, Britain's racist immigration laws ensure that, at the moment, only the Irish have free access and the present sharpening of the permanent economic crisis in all 32 countics guarantees an unbroken and increasing flow of new immigrants, The Free Slate government dare not keep accurate statistics on how many people are forced to leave each year for economic reasons. Northemers who go to Britain are moving from one part of the British state to another as far as both govermmentand voluntary agencies are concerned and do not show up on the slalistics. Present estimates are that something like 50,000 Irish people a year are going to Britain, That would be roughly equivalent to 600,000 people a year leaving Britain. These 50,000 individuals are evidence of the absolute failure of the Irish capitalist economy and evidence of the destructiveness of a Stralegy of reliance on multi national companies to create Jobs. In short they are 50,000 examples proving that the Irish Free State isaneo-colony, The bitterest twist to the joke of Irish capitalism is that the imperialist power to which it is most heavily subordinated and which bears the most overwhelming responsibility for the strangulation of the capitalist economy in Treland is also the one which every year accepts 50,000 of the people to whom Ireland has nothing to offer.

This new wave of immigrants is potentially the foundation for amass movement for British withdrawal. ILis overwhelmingly composed of young working class women and men with no affection for either of the major Insh bourgeois parties and possessing the half-hidden Republicanism of the Irish working class. They are the ones who buy thousands of copies of * An Phoblacht" every week in English pubs. When they vote in Britain the majority vote for the Labour Party. The ‘Irish Post’, the paper with the largest circulation among the Insh in Britain supported the challenge by Tony Benn and Eric Heffer for the leadership of the party and at the last general election called on its readers to vote Labour.

The organisations in Britain which ar campaigning for withdrawal are all very small, particularly when measured against the task they have set themselves. Politically the most important is the Labour Committee on Ireland which organises inside the Labour Party but which has stagnated over the past year or 50 because of its leadership's desire to dissolve it into the Time To Go! campaign, The worst of them, like the Insh Freedom Movement , are nothing bul fronts for ultra left sects which attract and bum out comparalively large numbers of individuals through noisy support for the armed struggle and are characterised by the most appalling political sectarianism.

The much healthier Troops Out Movementcomprises a number of independent activists and representatives of some small left proups.and is the historical continuity of the British withdrawal movement. It has a fundamentally comect understanding of the need to work with forces with whom it does not completely agree and over the past eighteen months has participated in a number of broadly organised initiatives.

The Irish in Britain have an abundance of organisations ranging from the GAA and cultural groups to ‘county associations’. Although the GAA sponsored the 1989 Time To Go! demonstration it has steered clear of politics and the umbrella organisation, the Federation of Irish Societies, has consistently put obstacles in the way of campaigners for the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six and is strongly influenced by the Irish embassy, The more radical Irish in Britain Representation Group is paralysed by its lack of poliucal clarity butnevertheless ithas taken up such questions as anti-Inish racism in the media, the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the discrimination faced by the Irish in housing in a way that no other group has done. It is a weak organisation bul denotes a remendous gain in self confidence for Irish people.

For the whole period for the Birmingham bombings until the Hunger Swike the Irish in Britain virtually abstained from political activity connected with withdrawal. The Prevention of Terronsm Act, the frame-ups of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four served their purpose. People were too terrified to become involved. A very obvious lesson from this period is how much of an obstacle to building a mass withdrawal movement the tactic of armed struggle in Britain was. [tis no exagperation lo say that the basic work being done now could have been done in 1973 and "74. What are the concrete results of the armed actions in Britain in the 1970s? The only real one is the lack of amovement such as that which greatly helped the defeat of the United States in Vietnam or one with the popularity and influence of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain, AN REABHLOID - Page 17

Asan historical footnote itis worth recalling the 100,000 strong demonstrations in support of an amnesty for Fenian prisoners supported by Marx in the last century; the Anti-Partition League inthe early 1920's whichcould simultaneously organise demonstrations several thousand strong ina dozen English and Welsh towns; and more recently the large anti internment demonstration in Britain at the beginning of the 1970's. What linked all these movements was the massive involvement of first and second generation emigrants, something which has been absent since.

The unfortunate reality ts that the British working class will not provide the support for such a movement, at least in its first stages. Although there exists a majority in Britain for withdrawal itis primarily driven by war weariness and indifference. IL has little to do with support for self determination and these moods will not easily be converted into conscious activity, Moreover the role of most of the leaderships of British working class organisations is, in an historical sense, criminal, As a whole they accept the assorted variclics of social imperialism expounded by Kinnock, Militant and the Workers Party. They are united by a hatred of the armed struggle corducted by the largest revolutionary organisation in Europe and support for the impossibility called ‘unity by consent’. There are exceptions. The entire executive council of the National Union of Railwaymen sponsored aconference in London on the McBride principles, In 1989 the Time To Go! campaign registered some successes in the unions. It won the affiliation of NALGO, a local suvernment union with 500,000 members and had fringe meetings on Ireland at virtually every union conference. However while ithas understood thatitis necessary to persuade people in Britain that there is aneed fora debate around British involvementin Ireland, as opposed to preaching timeless truths Page £“ "“ABHLOID.

Fs to an uncomprehending world, its self appointed leadership, which in reality only consists of less than a dozen people, is a mirror image of the ultra left sectarians in the way itadamantly refuses any discussion of the campaign's direction among the rank and file and excludes those with whom it disagrees from having any meaningful participation, This partly explains why the campaign has failed to really take off.

The most important reason though is the lack of significant mass mobilisations in Ireland itself, This more than any other factor explains the smallness of the demonstrations in Britain over the last few years. Nevertheless lack of mass activity in Ireland gives time to construct the basis of a withdrawal movement, allowing the political battles to be fought with the ultra lefts. and those with bureaucratic tendencies. This is what is happening at the moment with the creation of the Free Ireland Network, which involves groups and activists who participated in both Time To Go! and the Year of Action groups. It is the duty of these people to learn from the history of the women’s movement and the lesbian and gay movement the simple fact that it will be those with the most direct sense of theiroppression who will lead the struggle for their own liberation. Those in Ireland with influence on the withdrawal movement should remind our British comrades of the necessity to begin to organise among the Irish in Britain.

Navigator - Our British Correspondent

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