British Labour’s
Socialist Republic1981Labour, the left and left unityPrisoners and the hunger strikesLabour, the left and left unityPrisoners and the hunger strikes
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Few of the reactions to the death of Bobby Sands can have been as scandalous as that of the leader of the British Labour Party, Michael Foot. At Westminster he gave full support to the intransigent position of the Tory Government, repeating almost word for word the arguments put forward by Paisley on BBC radio earlier in the morning.
When Foot was elected to the leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party the capitalist press ranted and raved about his "extreme socialism". Foot however has proved himself a staunch supporter of imperialist oppression in Ireland while being ready to denounce repression in El Salvador, the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
Foot!s snivelling support for Thatcher was matched only by thesilence of the Labour left. It was left to right wing Labour MP, Patrick Duffy, to place responsibility for Bobby Sands death squarely on the shoulders of Thatcher's Government. The British left must make the breaking of this 'bipartisan policy! its main aim, Kenneth Livingstone, the recently elected chairperson of the Greater London Council, TONY BENN has fired the first shots in one battle to end the collaboration— ist bipartisan approach of the British Labour Party with Thatcher's policy for the 6 counties. Supporting the 5 demands of the prisoners, he compared the artificial state of the North of Ireland toa supposed solution in Zimbabwe which would set up an independent white state around Salis-— buy with an artificial white majority and Western financing.
There is no doubt that there is a political war going on in the 6 counties, he said, and that