SDLP Collaborators

In the final analysis the British Labour Party serves the interests of the ruling class but i remams responsive to the demands of the vorking class; to pose as defenders of that class anc as an alternative to mass action to put a brake cn the struggles of the workers and contain them within capitalism.

This naturally creates tensions within the Labour Party, tensions greater than those within the Tory party, for it is not a homogenow grouping. Labour comprises elements from a wide spectrum of the labour movement. The mternal stresses caused by these two inter related factors has been expressed in a countless wranglings within the Labour Party on major elements of policy throughout its history. Recently this has included the issue of nationalisation — but in the future it could include Ireland.

While official policy has been bi-partisanship, a number of Labour MPs have called into question the imperialist role in Ireland. Ja nes Wellbeloved has long held such a position ind has recently been calling for a full inquiry into the Littlejohn and Lennon affairs, linking :he two, and examining the axtivities of the st ecial branch and security forces in both matters.

Recently Marcus Lipton has added his /oice to a growing groundswell of opinion with he Party calling for the withdrawal of the Bri'ish Army.

These are trends which will grow under the pressure of a resistance to Imperialism which can be shown to be of mass proportions — that the major section of the anti-unionist wor ‘ing Comrades, Re your analysis of the unionist populatior. in the six counties, Connolly’s estimation of Unionism as a “‘dying cause”’ is a little easier to understand speaking as he was .. . (60 years ago) — than your _Tepetition of it. Especially at a time when to quote your article “the combativity of the nationalist minority is at it’s lowest in the six ‘ counties” and they are faced with “the growing cass rejects British domination In this context, Rees is on the right of the Labour Party, his second in command, Stanley Orme, more to the left. Orme, a close confidant of the SDLP, is thus placed as the right man to wring concessions from the SDLP, to make deals with them, and to understand their position in attempting to sell the British strategy to the anti-unionist people Reaction of SDLP The present repression of the new Government has caused little reaction to the official line of the SDLP.

On the treatment of the Winchester Nine, they say nothing, on increasing internment — nothing; on BA raids — nothing; on further inroads into general liberty — nothing; on the extension of the Emergency Provisions Act — nothing. But on the rent and rates strike Austin Currie has called for it to be ended — he says the time for resistance has passed.

This spontaneous protest against internment by the working class was eagerly seized by the SDLP in 1971 when in order to retain any credibility it was forced to strike a radical pose. Today internment continues, the justification and the importance of the continuation of the rent and rates strike continues, but the position of the SDLP has changed.

The SDLP now has the backing of British Imperialism and is not under pressure from an anti-unionist working class united in struggle against repression.

The immediate future of the SDLP depends by a “principled position on the national question”?

The strategy you propose would finally ? ? ? “herald the beginnings of a movement woards a democratic secular and socialist Ireland” you offer no proof for this...’ pie in the sky, when you die!”

The “two nations theory” offers an explanation for protestant reactions which IS understandable and avoids wishful thinking such as your own and Connolly’s visions of old relations melting and dissolving under pressure of our civilised self-government.

What the revolutionaries in Ireland have to “face up to” is their dependency on Irish Republicanism, and the harm this has done to their vision, and the whole cause of socialism.

Yours faithfully Dick Spicer the SDLP.

Need for maximum unity of other organisations.

repression. defeat would have been total. supposed right! gives the RUC and BA virtually free hands to lift, detain and keep for unlimited periods.

on the success of the Assembly and Sunningdale. The SDLP is striving for the maximum demobilisation of the anti-unionist working class, despite continuing British Army repression. Loyalist intransigence means that the only real room for manoeuvre by Imperialism lies on the fragmented, wearied anti-unionist side. The SDLP is contributing to the attempt to lull Loyalists into acceptance of the British strategy by refusing to counter state violence orto encourage any form of opposition from anti-unionists. In this the SDLP are skating on thin political ice, for silence on such repression is a risky business, Militants in the North must apply the heat to sink Fitt and Co. This can be done by explaining the role of the SDLP and by building a movement which can present a force to oppose repression, thus outflanking It is for this that the maximum unity of forces opposed to repression is crucial.

A lead in this has been shown in County Derry with the creation of the anti-Internment Co-ordinating Committee. This includes both wings of Sinn Fein, Kevin Street and Gardiner Place, NICRA and the local PHRC and Association for Legal Justice as well as a number It is the duty of all organisations opposing repression to unite on such a basis, behind demands for the ending of internment and of In Belfast the PHRC provides a basis for such of the national movement it was compelled to restrict its claim of jurisdiction first to -Ulster and eventually to the Six Northeastern counties, Writing in 1913 Connolly was able to appreicate that a hisotrical defeat was in store for Unionism. Had not the middle class leadership capitulated to British imperialism that If Spicer cannot see this, after sixty years, of meditation, he can scarcely be expected to see what is happening today. Loyalism is certainly in an upswing but Unionism as a whole is in disarray. The Faulknernites and Alliance wing of Unionism (which have a unionist majority in the Assembly) has not only given up its claim over the whole of Ireland but over the North as well. By accepting “power-sharing” and (possibly) a Council of Ireland they have permitted the Catholic “nation” a say in the affairs of the Protestant “nation” Rigour mortis ... you Spicer proceeds to attribute a simplistic characterisation of the Protestants as “bribed pro-imperialists’”’ and says, quoting from the last issue of ‘The Plough’ that this is in consequence Offences Against the State Act in the South. a unity. But this unity must not be expressed in simple fronts between organisations, for the central task is the involvement of the people in the resistance struggle, and to combat the weariness and disorientation of the anti-unionist working class. Local resistance committees must be developed in areas, committees such as the PHRC’s in the New Lodge and Ardoyne in Belfast.

Political groups under the auspices of fronts such as the PHRC or the anti-Internment Co-Ordinating Committee must attempt to develop such local bodies.

The people in antiainionist areas who are opposed to repression must actively support such bodies where they exist or build them if they do not, with like minded people and pressure local political groups to participate.

Local committees, agitating and protesting in their areas, linked with united movements are the key to the anti-imperialist struggle.

Unity in the fronts is essential, as is unity between the fronts, for the organisation of co-ordinated campaigns. 4 The PHRC and ICRA have already had discussions and will be organising co-ordinated and joint protests in the future.

The provision of a coherent campaign of action of the basic issues — political hostages, north and south, repressive legislation, north and south, the Winchester Nine, that can be seen to be a viable force in fighting repression and which can overcome the fragmentation of anti-imperialist forces is the way forward for the struggle.

resolves the various components of light into separate colours. The national question as a political prism similarly “distorts’* the nature of the class struggle in Ireland by clarifying the various strands which on first sight present such a tremendous tangle. If Spicker could get rid of the watery sarcasm for a moment he might ‘ sober up enough to see that even he, with his “Two Nations Theory”, views reality through the prism of the national question!

Spicer concludes by exhorting Irish revolutionaries to end their dependency on Republicanism and find a new course with the aid of the “Two Nations Theory” which unravells all the complexities of the national question.

The “Two Nations Theory” attributes the _ reactions of the Protestant working class to the alleged attempts of “Catholic nationalists” to userp their national rights. The “Two-Nationists” support the Sunningdale Agreement as the ideal way of reconciling “national” antagonisms between Catholics and Protestants. Yet the Protestant working class overwhelmingly rejects Sunningdale as a “Catholic Nationalist” plot