A 3-months ban on marches beginning 3 April has been introduced in the Strathclyde Region. The Ban, under the Public Order Act, is one of the longest in the present round and is clearly designed to silence the growing Glasgow campaign in support of Irish political prisoners on hunger strike for political status. The Ban was aimed specifically at the demonstration on 4 April called by the Glasgow Hunger Strike Action Committee (GHSAC). The demonstration would have been the third in as many months and 3,000 were expected. The Police used Loyalist threats as an excuse to have the Ban implemented, but in reality the prospects, as the ‘Daily Record’ predicted, of a ‘huge’ march and further evidence of growing and militant anti-imperialism of Glasgow workers horrified the Police and their local paymasters, the Labour-controlled Strathclyde Region.
The response of the Glasgow Hunger’ Strike Action Committee was to hold two open air rallies, attended by hundreds of workers on 4 and 25 April. Both rallies were supported by Republican Flute Bands, whose speakers* expressed complete solidarity with the hunger strikers. The RCG was the only British left group supporting both rallies. Present at the first rally were Sinn Fein and a speaker from the Eritrean Students Society who delivered his message of international solidarity to enthusiastic cheers. The GHSAC has now called for marches outside Strathclyde, principally in Edinburgh, has picketed Strathclyde Regional Council and widely distributed leaflets exposing the undemocratic and anti-working class nature of the Ban.
Glasgow, the principal area covered by the Ban has been the scene of vicious attacks on the working class – health conditions are the worst in West Europe, redundancies have decimated factories and areas such as Greenock and Port Glasgow. Glasgow slums, presided over by the local Labour Party are notorious. The unity of the battle against these conditions with the fight for Irish freedom is what the imperialists fear. The Labour Convenor of Strathclyde said as much when he stated that he feared the effects of unemployment on youth linking up with what he called ‘sectarian’ marches. He has reason to fear this unity as it would spell a quick and timely end to the whole rotten Labour-controlled machine which controls Glasgow.
The silence from the organised Glasgow labour movement in the face of these conditions has been notable over the past years, no fight-back has emerged from what was once Red Clydeside and the home of John Maclean. The reasons are not hard to find; the loyalty of the Communist and Labour Parties in Glasgow to British imperialism has ensured these defeats and others such as Linwood and Singers. Therefore it is no surprise that these pro-imperialists and labour bureaucrats have done nothing faced with a three-months ban on working class demonstrations. Indeed, the Loyalism and Orangeism which riddles the official Glasgow labour movement, was exposed when Jane MacKay, CP member and Secretary of Glasgow District Trades Council, was asked for her comments on the ban. First she said she was opposed to sectarian parades – the usual bourgeois lie that there is no difference between revolutionary Republicanism and reactionary Loyalism – then she tipped the scales decidedly in favour of…Loyalism and its master British Imperialism, when she said ‘Many trade union members will be on the Orange marches and that is their right.’ (Glasgow Herald 2 April 1981). This ‘friend’ of the working class and espouser of international causes everywhere but in Ireland deserves the OBE! This is the same Trades Council which refused to do anything for the Glasgow 2’s right to sell socialist newspapers. The Communist Party itself has contented itself with fretting about whether a June CND march would be affected. The SWP, true to their record of absolute hostility towards work in support of the hunger strikers, through their Right to Work Campaign called for the ban to be lifted ‘…for labour and trade union demonstrations’. The message being that their friends and allies in the Labour Party should be allowed to march but the ‘croppies’ and those who stand with them should lie down once more. Edinburgh SWP members have greeted the news of an Edinburgh march with horror and called us ‘loonies’.
The banning of the GHSAC march on 4 April exposed the fear of the imperialists and their servants in the working class. The unity of the working class here with the Irish liberation struggle will shake the whole foundation of the British state. The 4 April march in Glasgow is the first anti-imperialist and progressive march to be banned for years. It is also the first march on Ireland to be banned. All other bans in the recent past have been instituted ostensibly because of NF etc marches. This ban was specifically aimed at the GHSAC march, and it is no coincidence that the issue should be Ireland and the place Glasgow. The growing Glasgow support for, political status and for Irish freedom has beery met head on. The job now is to carry on undeterred and unintimidated.
Glasgow Correspondent
FRFI 10 May/June 1981
