Sinn Fein Victory in North, But... Southern Workers Hold the

the North is the main spark of hope within a British General election which otherwise marked a major victory for the British Tories and a major setback for the working class in both Britain and Ireland. It’s clear from the opening of the new parliament and the British Queen’s speech outlining the programme of the Govt. that a new offensive is to begin now.

But the Tories and their Unionist allies have won a battle, not the war. The real struggle comes now, when they try to crush the resistance of the Irish people and their own minorities and working - class opposition.

That struggle won’t be fought in Westminster, and it won't centre around the way the vote went in an election now past. It will be fought on the streets, in the factories and trade union structures, and it will depend awareness, and level of anisation of ordinary working Class militants.

If Sinn Fein recognise and respond to this central fact then the spark of hope that their victory represents can be converted into a new blaze of mass resistance against British rule in both parts of Ireland.

It’s not enough to point to votes cast, to point to the next election, to offer an advice service or to pretend that military action by itself offers any prospect of victory. Only a programme of action that unites the mass of the people in a fight against Britains military repression and economic oppression, against the Stormont assembly, and for an anti-imperialist alternative to the council for a new Ireland will build our confidence and organisation for the battles ahead.

The return of James Prior to the North as Secretary of State can only be a holding operation and is partly due to the Sinn Fein vote. Faced with one pocket of mass resistance, Margaret Thatcher decided to put the question of Ireland on the long finger and loox for easier victories elsewhere. However the crisis in Ireland today means that it will not remain on the long finger, and unless things go badly wrong for her in Britain the temptation to move against the main outpost of rebellion will grow.

We gained time - but that’s only a real gain if we use it before the election was the new dialogue between Sinn Fein and sections of the British Labour party left. Gerry Adams MP his-alres:. announced his intention of going to Britain to re-open those discussions. We believe that the Sinn Fein abstention policy is wrong but without moving on that Sinn Fein could learn from the experiences of Bernadette McAliskey as an MP. Gerry Adams should speak not only to the leaders but to the militants. By going on picket lines with British workers and joining in demonstrations of the Black community he can build a real solidarity in But at the end of the day solidarity from British workers depends on a real mass struggle here. The left in Sinn Fein are aware of this and in numerous public statements extending to well before the Assembly election: have pledged to build such a movement against the . Instead of fighting for this in the Westminster elections they settled for the politically meaningless slogan of “principled leadership”.

it's not just on the immediate issues in the North that the question of leadership is posed. The fact that the election was based on the Westminster constituencies should not lead us to adopt a partitionist attitude ourselves nor blind us to the fact that eventual victory will be based on leadership of the Irish working class as a whole. In the South today class politics are posed even more directly than in the North. The amendment campaign posed a direct threat to womens rights and the austerity offensive is led not by the remote forces of British imperialism but by the much more immediate and weaker forces of Irish capitalism. And on both these issues Irish workers are fighting back. A recent poll showed a dramatic advance on attitudes to the amend ment and there still exists mass discontent about taxation and a whole series of fightbacks against austerity Here ‘principled leadership’ clearly means a programme of class action. Will Sinn Fein meet this challenge?

Anti - imperialists have gained in the elections, but the imperialists have gained in a much more dramatic way. We gained a breathing space -lets use it to spell out ‘princprogramme that will lead a fightback against the Assembly, oppose the ‘Council for a New Ireland’ with an allipled leadership’ as 2 political a KEY!

"6 ; ie” = eae @ The victorious Gerry Adams salutes his supporters from the window of Sinn Fein headquarters on the Falls Road, oe) . Oa” FF fr