Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no. 10 May/June 1981
At a time when it was more than ever both possible and absolutely necessary to build a campaign in support of political status the Labour Party and its middle class socialist allies — the SWP, IMG etc — have refused to do so.
The imperialist Labour Party and the TUC have backed the British state to the hilt. The Labour lefts have occasionally whimpered that ‘intransigence’ will strengthen the forces they all hate and fear the IRA. Yet for two months of Bobby Sands’ agonising death the SWP, IMG etc argued for a campaign based on these ‘broad forces’ of the Labour left.
The result has been a campaign even smaller than during the last hunger strike. The only national event was a demonstration of less than 500 people. A demonstration in Staines mustered 50 people. And on the night of Bobby Sands’ murder, the British middle class socialists in London could turn out only 300 people on a picket of Downing Street. Yet these events were organised by groups claiming a following of 10,000 people.
This failure was no accident. During the first hunger strike, the middle class socialists’ strategy —appealing to Labour lefts and other dignitaries — totally failed. So this time they consciously decided not to expose their chosen allies any further by doing nothing. The RCG along with Republican flute bands and allies amongst Republican youth, Iranian comrades and Irish workers were campaigning for political status. So the middle class socialists resorted to sabotage.
In Glasgow they left the committee and refused to support demonstrations and rallies. In Bradford they voted against an RCG motion for a march to pass through black working class areas. In Manchester the SWP and IMG expelled the RCG from the local committee on the extraordinary grounds that we sold FRFI on the committee’s street meetings. In North London when independent Irish workers joined the local committee and demanded some work, the IMG, SWP and TOM voted to dissolve it, and cancel a demonstration. In South London the IMG and SWP refused to join a committee the RCG formed, open to all prepared to work. At the London H-Block/Armagh Committee the SWP and IMG ensured that the April demonstration was called on a Sunday rather than a Saturday when people on the streets might actually see them. They opposed holding it in Birmingham on the grounds of Birmingham’s associations with the bombings. And the CPGB, who on the day after Bobby Sands’ death said too little was done by the Labour movement to save his life, themselves did next to nothing.
Even after Bobby Sands’ death, the IMG/SWP opposed an RCG motion for an immediate national demonstration on 23 May. Instead they will have it on 13 June when many more Hunger Strikers could be dead.
Irish political prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs and Long Lartin prisons staged roof-top protests in support of political status. These comrades face loss of remission and vicious beatings for their courageous protests. What a contrast to the middle-class ‘lefties’ who face no such repression yet refuse to fight for political status.
The RCG has waged a campaign which involved all our resources, all of our members and supporters. Public meetings and rallies have been held in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool and North and South London. We have put the maximum energies into work in the working class and black areas. We have campaigned on the streets, on the housing estates, in the pubs. In the course of it we have suffered arrests and physical attacks in South London, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow.
If all organisations claiming to be socialist had done likewise the campaign in Britain could have placed great pressure on the British state. They chose not to do so and thus acted like criminals. The RCG will continue the work. And we invite anybody who has the interests of the Irish and British workers at heart to join us in this work of building a real campaign for
Victory to the Hunger Strikers! Political Status Now!
