R.lp/n.ll.p

than five P.D. members, including two girls, Inspector McFarland, hasn't received a penny as yet, either because he is of sterner stuff than the weaklings and perjurers under his command, or because there wasn't a scratch on him. Most disturbing is that no non-police witnesses were called to testify as to how these officers received their non-existent injuries -or to testify to the fact that Messrs I would like to become a member of the People's Democracy. I enclose .a fee of 10 shillings.

Dackipirerst Ss SE EE. SA POG Sele FR i A ER ces All letters, gifts, correspondence etc. to:- 88, Ladybrook Park, Belfast. ‘NEW MEMBERSHIP CARDS FOR THE YEAR NOVEMBER 1970 -NOVEMBER 1971 ARE NOW AVAILABLE. IF YOU BECAME A MEMBER OF P.D. BEFORE 3lst AUGUST 1970 YOU SHOULD RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP. NEW CARDS ARE AVAILABLE FROM THE MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY, OR THROUGH THE BRANCHES. election, in which it had its most disasterous showing for twenty years, the NILP took another step towards political extinction by expelling Eamonn McCann from its Executive Committee. Truly the death-wish is upon them.

The NILP has fought St. Annes five times since the war. Their average vote before this year was 5,650 and they never dropped bedeposit. Nearly 3,500 voters deserted them, and almost exactly that number voted for the SDLP candidate Lavery. The Unionist vote, though up on the February 1969 election when there was also a liberal unionist, was down on all previous elections in St. Annes -so much for polarization of the voters.

executive, with their unfailing talent for blaming everyone but themselves for their mistakes, have decided that McCann's activities lost them thousands of votes. The reality of the situation is that the NILP's pusillaninous fencesitting has fool:d no-one. Their The week after the St. Annes bylow 4,300. In the by-election their candidate got 882 votes and lost his around.

Faced with this debacle the NILP attend. (1) refusing to endorse McCann as a candidate last June after a local branch had selected him and (2) expelling him from the Executive after he had been democratically elected, it should become clear that it is impossible to change an organisation democratically when it doesn't have a democratic structure. At the same time the St. Anne's result makes nonsense of the argument the: the NILP has any sort of mass support among the working class. In fact it gets the votes when there is no other alternative to Unionism It is time the few socialists left in the NILP realised that it never has been and never will be a socialist party, and that to ''stay in and fight'' is to waste time and energy badly needed for the building of a real socialist movement. The P.D. has taken up that task. We would welcome the assistance of ex-members of the NILP. Meanwhile NILP is digging its own grave. The duty of all socialists is to bury it. M. FARRELL CONFERENCE The P.D. Conference is on Sunday November 29th in Belfast at 3.00pm. All members should For details of venue ring: 669686, 615661 or 665644

It will take "13 or 14 years” for his lecture to extending the past reFREE CITIZEN 27th NOVEMBER 1970