The White Paper © Illusion on Off

Whitelaw's White Paper is totally unacceptable to Socialists and Republicans. It is totally unacceptable because it represents an attempt, not to move away from British exploitive rule of Ireland, but to re-structure that rule, to bring it up to date and thereby to perpetuate it. The vagueness of sections of the Paper, which all commentators have recognised and commented on, means merely that the Tories are not certain in their own minds how best to go about this, nor are they confident that they can carry it off. With good reason.

SINGLE OBJECTIVE The White Paper makes no basic change in British policy. Through O'Neill's "reform-package" of November '68, the Chichester-Clark/ Wilson "Downing Street declaration" of August 1969 etc., British imperialism has been pursuing a single objective - it has been trying, insofar as it is posstble, to disentangle itself from the semi_ redundant Orange apparatus and to give the Catholic middle class a chance of executive power - and to do this without weakening its own grip on Ireland.

O'*Neill failed, and the Downing Street Declaration failed for two reasons. First, the British found it damnably difficult to wriggle out of the mesh of the OrangeUnionist complex which it had created and supported for generations. The second, linked, reason was that a large section of the. Catholic working class reacted to events by demanding the end of British rule in Ireland and by giving support to organisations militarily trying to achieve that. 4 TORY BLUEPRINT The basic British strategy for the past two years has been get rid of the seeond difficulty first. That is, to defeat the IRA. In March 1972, when the Bill to prorogue Stormont for one year was passed, the Tories believed firmly, on the basis of advice from the Army, that this would be achieved within the yéar and that by March '73 they would be in a position to formulate clearly their blueprint for the Irish future. A glance at the statements of Cabinet Ministers and high-ranking Army officers a year ago, will confirm just how confident they were at that point.

But the IRA has not been defeated, despite the cacophonic chorus of condemnation from Toriés Orange, Green and pastel-Pink, Church "dignitaries" and gaggles of "peace-women". And because the IRA has not been defeated, Whitelaw now finds it impossible to produce an unambiguous plan.

AFTER THE ELECTIONS For example; it is not at. all clear what powers the "Assembly" will have. The Tories say they will decide after Command 5259- File under trrelevant.

direct rule resumed.

HOLDING THE FORT ee a we Hated tn prison. the election, when they see who, in the light of a continued IRA campaign, has beén elected. If the Assembly comprises people unwilling, for whatever reason, to go along with Tory intentions, it will simply be abolished in March '74 and "old-style' The "Irish Dimension" has neither length, breadth nor height and there is no firm commitment even to a "Council of Ireland" which could chat about the Tourist trade (R.I.P.).

In fact, the more one stares at the White Paper, the more it dissolves into nothingness. It is a holding operation to keep the situation in check until the IRA is finally dealt with. Until then internment will” ‘continue under the Diplock proposals, and so will harrassment of Catholic areas. In the South, the Cosgrave regime will use all means available, including its whole naval might, to smash Republican intransigence.

In this situation, the role of the AIL is clear. It is to continue to mobilise in solidarity with those fighting Imperialism and to combat at every level any illusions sown by the White Paper’. :

It is vital that all those who claim to oppose British Imperialism in - Ireland, ré-double, or resume, their activity within the AIL, and ensure that there is no consensus in Britain for the Tories' proposals.

SPOSSSOSCHOSHSHOHSHSHSHHOHSHSHOHHHSOHHHSHHSSECHOSELEL®O the first of what ts planned to be a regular Saturday afternoon picket, to draw attention to the plight of the ten people arrested at gunpoint from a Belfast bound plane at. Heathrow Airport.

Bernadette Devlin, Vanessa Redgrave and Edna O'Brien have so far stood up and offered to go bail for the Belfast Ten - whovare still tnearcerlegal rights for the Tents planned and:a defence committee has been set up. (See back page). Over 200 people demonstrated out— side Coventry. Magistrates Court, in a picket organised, by.Coventry AIL, cheered six Irish defendants» as they entered the Court, under heavy police guard, to answer conspiracy charges.

The six were arrested after police swooped on the homes of Irishmen and British socialists in the early hours of the morning. The raids were carried out by Special Branch men, including members of the RUC Special Branch operating in Coventry, and groups of police commandos.

PART OF A PATTERN Altogether about eighty. homes were raided, thirty seven in the Coventry district alone. The only link between the people raided was their connection with relief organisations working around the Irish “uestion. The reids are similar to thé onés which took place last year after the Aldershot bomb explosions, when Republicans and members of the International Socialists and the IMG were among those singled out for this particular kind of police attention.

Address books, personal belongings and documents were seized. These latest raids are part of a pattern of police repression which has steadily mounted over the last year. Organisations on the British Left and Irish exile organisations are increasingly coming under police harrassment.

UNITED ACTION AGAINST THE RAIDS Over 800 people filled Conway Hall in London recently in a meet ing organised by British revolutionary Socialist organisations -the IS, IMG and SLL - to protest against the last wave of political . repression.

This is, we hope, only the first such response of the Irish in British Labour Movement to the latest waves of raids and arrests. It shows what can be done’ if we build principled united action against the attacks on democratic rights and basic human freedoms, which are being whittled away under the Tory Government.

sr Future actton to highlight the deprivation of baste athe,

Jacqueline Kaye, the secretary of the Prisoners Atd Committee, Clann na hEtreann on

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Support the Belfast 10 A picket of more than fifty people took place outside Brixton prison on