Why Tus Hold Back

The /rish Citizen has frequently stressed the link between the struggle of the working class in Britain and that of the nationalist population of Ireland: but the quick review of the _ *statements made by the organised working class, which was carried in the last issue, served only to show how far the trade union leadership runs away from ideas of solidarity towards those of compromise or avoidance of the issue. It would be pessimistic, however, to stop there and not to try to present a few ideas on how ISC can win the organised working class to a solidarity position.

In view of the content of some of the motions put forward by trade union branches, the most important question is whether those who devised them are simply confused about what is happening in Ireland, or whether their ideas are linked to the particular interests they are pursuing. If the former were the case, it would merely be necessary to put out enough information to correct the distortions often accepted as fact. On the other hand, if the political pronouncements of the trade union leadership have a material basis, which differs from that of the rank and file it is necessary to analyse this and make it quite explicit.

Many British trade unions have a considerable membership among the Protestant community of the Six Counties. This has a bearing on the thinking of those officials who are primarily concerned with keeping this membership within the fold of their particular union- in other a ___ which puzzled many people was why an "to break the picket lines. One of the most | important reasons why this type of force iz was not used is because the government | dreads taking any action which might link the struggle of the nationalist minority in _ freland to the struggle of the British working class itself. The government was clever enough to realise the tremendous radicalising and solidarising effect reports of troop brutalities against the Catholic working class ghettos would have, when placed alongside reports of soldiers intimidating and manhandling miners in an effort to break both their picket lines and their strike.

During the strike the one place able to maintain a constant supply of power was the North-East of Ireland. This was because coal from Poland and elsewhere in Europe, which was blacklisted by dockers all over Britain,was handled freely by the Belfast dockers who muttered their sympathy with the miners.but stated that the security situation -was too dangerous for Belfast to be plunged into darkness’. The dockers of Belfast have a record of discrimination against Catholics and support for the Unionist hierarchy,and now, organised under William Hull of the Loyalist Workers, have once again shown their blatant disregard towards working class solidarity.

Inside the 26 counties, the port of Dundalk.

was used to unload thousands of tons of coal originally destined for the South, Some local coal merchants saw in the strike an opportunity to make a quick profit and began conveying the coal into the North using a fleet of lorries. This operation was not overlooked by the local IRA who immediately demonstrated their solidarity with the miners’

struggle by hi-jacking these scab lorries and burning them on the border near Newry.

One of the least talked about links between the South and the North was the connection between their electricity grids, which can transfer power from one grid to the other in times of shortage. This link almost totally blocked the effects in the north of the power workers go-slow in the winter of 1970-71, and would undoubtedly have been used again during the miners’ strike. But un;

fortunately for Stormont the IRA spotted this connection too and blew it up earlier this year. words they put the interests of the organisation as such above the class interests of the membership. This was represented in its most extreme form by an official who said that it would be “unfair” to one side or the other for his union to express any official view at all. A second factor is that the: trade union lea‘ dership in Britain to a large extent found a comfortable place within the existing system and prefers to concentrate on limited economic objectives rather than pose questions of political power. They bring this bias to their understanding of what is happening in the North of Ireland. From this flows the cry for the Irish people to concentrate on what are referred to as “working class issues” -in other words, purely economic issues. Of course, we are all in favour of better housing and more jobs; but in the Six Counties the progressive section of the population has come to realise that these cannot be won within the existing northern Ireland state which is based on sectarianism, which gives privileges to Protestant workers, which, though they are small, are nevertheless denied to the Catholic section of the population.

Slogans which call on the Irish people to forget the national question in favour of illusory Protestant-Catholic unity are pernicious, particularly when put forward by supposedly left wing groups. They hold the struggle back rather than putting forward perspectives that will serve to advance it. Thus, one finds the already gone past that stage. darity we stand for.

‘Ireland stages theory put forward by the Communist Party calls for the democratisation of Stormont before the national question can be considered. This is completely out of step with what is actually happening, for the struggle began as a civil rights struggle and has It is not enough to reject this theory: all attempts by the English left to use the Irish struggle for their own ends must be resisted. The slogan “English and Irish unite to defeat the Tories” can be heard in some quarters. While the Republicans are asserting their right to decide their own future free from Britain, the British left calls for the Irish to do their work for them. This is notthe kind of soliThe Irish people have shown that they do not want a ““democratic’’ Stormont, or a so-called Bill of Rights given to them by the British government. We believe that their struggle is just, and that the long term interests of all sections of the working class will be served by the abolition of the sectarian Orange state, for only when this happens can the common bond uniting the two sections of the working class overcome the officially encouraged sectarianism of today. The victory of the Irish people will help labour militants in this country, but first it is necessary to be clear that we stand wholeheartedly for the right of the Irish people to self determination. This is the only effective class basis for solidarity.

A A struggle. TRADE UNION CONFERENCE A trade union conference held by the AntiInternment League on Sunday, 5 March, attracted well over 100 people, including 90 trade unionists from 18 different unions.

The conference was like a curate’s egg—good in parts. Mike Cooley, president of the tech- nical section of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, made an excellent speech pointing out that any defeated suffered by British imperialism in Ireland would represent a substantial victory for the British working class. He also agreed with a speaker from the Irish Solidarity Campaign that no campaign in this country which failed to come out in clear support of the IRA could be built on the necessary effective basis—a class basis. Another excellent speaker was Dermot Kelly of People’s Democracy, who spoke about the Northern Resistance Movement and also stressed the necessity to side clearly with the IRA in the present struggle. Unfortunately, however, the attitude persisted that politics and ‘practical proposals’ were two totally different topics. A suggestion for a campaign in the trade union movement to eradicate its latent chauvinism by stressing the need to support the IRA was ruled out of order. Instead all that came out of the conference was arrangements for co-ordination and committees. These are, of course, necessary—but the fact remains that unless the politics of our response to the Irish struggle are discussed seriously, and keyed in consciously to our intervention in the labour movement, then we may well usk: co-ordination for what?

### IRISH SOLIDARITY

DEFENCE FUND Well over a hundred people were arrested on — the Irish demonstration in Londononthe Saturday after the Derry massacre. Mai more have been arrested in other post-D demonstrations elsewhere. =

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-IRA- SOLIDARITY WITH THE _ MINERS

obviously reactionary government like Heath's did not resort to the use of troops