From Unity at Polls to Unity in Struggle

General Election onJune 9 is already decided. Thatcher's Tory government will be retumed to office: the only unknown factor is the size of the majority it will enjoy in the new parliament, Opinion polls don't always get it right but the failure of the Labour Purty to offer a full-blooded socialist aliemative makes a Tory majority almost inevitabke, That's geod news for the capitalist class, for the wealthy, the powerful and the priveleged The Tory Purty is their party and its job is to ensure that the crisis of the capitalist system ia resolved with the least cost and inconvenience to Britiah capitalism, That means solving the crisis by driving dowm the living standards and crushing the democratic nights of ing people Another term of Tory Government threatens a bleak future for all the non-priveleged sections.of British society; The attacks of the last four years will pale m comparison with Thatcher's plans to sell off the welfare state, strengthen police power and make workers’ mathons defenceless. The right-wing parliamentary leaderstup of the Labour Party will do litte to oppose these plans.

at © greater cost than uny where else. Whei con the political, economic or social Semers Bay Tories forced 10 young republican fighters to starve themselves to death rather policy and the financial bribery of the ‘sopergrases”. They imposed an unwanted and unworkable Assembly at Stormont in an attempt to give political cover to the naked violence which has characterised their stewardship of British imperialist © domination m the North. They are the historic bedfellows of Ulster Unioniem, the allies of all reactionary The Tories are unrelenting enemies of the Irish people's nght to selfdetermination. forces in Ireland, Back in office the Tories will feed the dynamic towards a restoration of the ie mcendency, adynomde already present in the Stormont Assembly, And, if the Tories were successful with their attacks on the living standards, the rights and organisations of working people in Britain, the drive towards loyalist role would become aloost unstoppable.

Certainly the parasitic politicians of the ‘Forum for a New Ireland’ could not be relied on to black such a development. Put op against British imperinlism, the Haugheys, Homes and Fitzgerilds tum into quivering jellies.

There is one power however that can not only halt Tory plans im Ireland but also open the way for overtuming the Tory offensive in Britain itself. That power is the mobilisation of the Lrish working class, a power that has not yet been felt in the struggle against British role.

There is only one party in this election that comes anywhere near addresang this ise — SUNN FEIN, That's why SOCIALIST REPUBLIC and PROPLES DEMOCRACY urge all our readers and supporters to fight for votes to be given to Sinn Fein, We are confident that in this election Sinn Fein wall go along way in = ing the misrepresentation of nationalist working people by the SDLP and scary Fit.

Bul there are questions that remam unanswered. Will Sinn Fein translate the sipport if receives at the polk intoa real movement against the Stormont Assembly? Will Sinn Fein fight to develop a truly democratic altemative to the ‘Forum’ chorade? Will Sinn Fein go beyond the rhetoric aboul w Socialat Republic and the working class ond through active involvement in the trade unions and in workers struggles fight to build » genuine anti-imperialiat leadership for the Irish working class?!

Sinn Fein's abstentioniat policy suggests that it has not quite made op its collective

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Where we stand According to the opinion ee and the media pundits the result of the Westminster

field Tory policy has boiled down to repression Thatcher, 20,000 jobs a year were lost, housing and social service: programmes gp to a halt. The