British solutions for Ireland: BEWARE FALSE FRIENDS

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 11 July/August 1981

The Irish crisis is once again moving towards a climax as more hunger strikers approach death. As the anger of the nationalist people threatens once again to burst onto the streets there has been a flurry of activity in the citadels of British imperialism. A wave of ‘solutions’ has come from those whose only concern is desperation to head off the growing threats to British imperialism in Ireland. All of them have one characteristic in common — they deny the right of the Irish people to self-determination. All come from long-standing enemies of the working class and oppressed peoples. All are British-imposed solutions.

The first, from Humphrey Atkins, is to set up an Advisory Council of Loyalist thugs and middle class Catholic traitors to advise British imperialism on how best to contain the nationalist resistance and defeat the IRA. This contempt for the Irish people will deceive no one.

The second, from that old imperialist Labour lag James Callaghan, wealthy farmer and the man who sent British troops into Ireland, is for an independent northern statelet. Having failed to subdue the nationalist minority and determined to deny self-determination to the Irish people, this disgusting wretch has finally called for an independent Loyalist state. This is Labour democracy. To propose independence for an artificial British-imposed Loyalist police state, which is based on the denial of the democratic rights of the nationalist minority and the denial of self-determination to the Irish people as a whole. Again, no one will be deceived.

The third comes from the Party whose treacherous record on Ireland is second to none – the Labour Party. The flag of the Labour Party is red only because it is stained with the blood of the Irish people. The record of the Labour Party says it all.

The proposals from the Labour Party Study Group are for a commitment to re-unite Ireland in the long term. This is to be achieved by agreement and consent. Partition, they say, must not be ended by threats, coercion or force. This means, as they well know, that it cannot be ended at all. They show the true Labour Party spirit towards democracy when they further propose a) no immediate withdrawal of British troops, b) no granting of political status or the five demands, c) no return of trial by jury. The Study Group, we should point out, includes those directly responsible for British murder and torture in Ireland, Roy Mason and Merlin Rees, and left-wingers’ who have tolerated this murder and torture in Ireland, Jo Richardson, Martin Flannery and Jock Stallard. It says everything about the nature of the Labour Lefts that they should have had little difficulty in reaching consensus with those imperialist butchers, Mason and Rees. Let no one have any doubts, new treachery is being prepared. By this cheap gesture of vague and meaningless talk of a united Ireland the Labour Party hopes to rescue its tattered image and buy — a small bribe would do — its so-called left wing.

The fourth solution comes from that pink charlatan Anthony Wedgewood-Benn. His solution is to change the army of occupation from British to UN troops. Benn was in the Governments which sent the troops into Ireland, which introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Act and which removed Special Category Status for Irish prisoners. He has never supported political status and has refused on numerous occasions to speak out publicly on the hunger strike. He is ‘raising’ the question of Ireland only to preserve his ‘left’ credentials and to satisfy — a not too demanding task — his middle class socialist friends.

In itself this apparent movement in the Labour lefts’ position on the reunification of Ireland is of little importance. They, among the other imperialists, are simply manoeuvring to find new means of preserving British imperialist rule in Ireland. That they have assumed a significance beyond this is solely the responsibility of the British middle class socialist left — the SWP, IMG, and CPGB. They have hailed these developments in the Labour Party as signs of great change. They have used them to justify their own long-standing alliance with and subservience to the Labour left. They have used them to give credence to their refusal to support the revolutionary forces in Ireland. They have used them to justify their position that British imperialism need not use repression in Ireland. And finally they have used them to justify their own view that revolutionary violence is not only unnecessary but, indeed is counter-productive in the struggle to end Partition in Ireland. Terrified of revolutionary violence, these middle class socialists must spread the illusion that the Irish can, by constitutional means, persuade British imperialism, under the guidance of a future left Labour Government, to re-unite Ireland and withdraw British forces. All their activity during the hunger strikes has been directed towards covering up for the Labour left. They have refused to campaign for political status; they have refused to fight bans on hunger strike marches; they have refused to even ask Labour MPs to move the writ for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. In a word they have refused to do anything that might possibly expose their Labour friends. In practice this has meant, in Britain, refusing to campaign on the hunger strike issue at all. There can be no doubt that the SWP/IMG/CP and other middle class socialist groups are as guilty as British imperialism for the murder of the hunger strikers.

These middle class socialists and their counterparts in Ireland have been trying to convince the Irish people that there is some hope of winning the Labour Party to support the right of the Irish people to self-determination. Our Irish comrades and friends would be making a great mistake in believing this. The Communist William Paul, as long ago as 1921 recognised the true nature of the Labour Party:

‘In lending every assistance to Ireland, it is not only necessary for us to attack the Government, but also to warn our Irish friends that the political and trade union leaders of the British Labour movement are as dangerous to them as even a Lloyd George or a Hamar Greenwood. The cowardly ineptitude of the Labour Party in the House of Commons, so far as Ireland is concerned, is at once humiliating and treacherous. The barefaced betrayals of Ireland and her workers by the British trade-union leaders is on a level par with that of the Labour Party. We assure our Irish friends that these elements are being exposed by the Communists.’

Nothing has changed. Today as then, the Labour Party and their middle class socialist supporters are a left cover for British imperialism. Treacherous and back stabbing they are the false friends of the Irish people.

Last week, An Phoblacht /Republican News gave a simple answer to these false friends:

‘The Irish Republican Army is right: the British government does not listen to the ballot box in Ireland and the only thing they will listen to in Ireland is what they listened to in other colonies: agitation, rebellion and armed force.’

EDITORIAL STATEMENT

Over the weekend 4-5 July and up to the murder of Joe McDonnell on Wednesday 8 July, the prisoners made a clear effort to settle the hunger strike. The statement issued by the prisoners on Saturday 4 July was as far as they could go without abandoning their demands. The British government has clearly and publicly rejected this attempt at a settlement. They have underlined this rejection by the attack on Joe McDonnell’s funeral and by three murders in two days: two teenagers shot dead and one woman, mother of three, killed with a plastic bullet.

This rejection shows beyond doubt that the British ruling class is not out for compromise. Its only concern is to undermine and demoralise the prisoners and their steadfast supporters. The only conclusion that revolutionaries can draw from these events is that nothing but fear will move the British ruling class: fear of insurrection and a growing revolutionary challenge to its rule in Ireland. Those who continue to deny this obvious truth are only aiding the British ruling class in its efforts to impose a humiliating settlement on the prisoners.

Throughout the hunger strike the middle class socialists in Britain have obstructed and sabotaged every attempt to build a mass campaign in support of the prisoners whether on political status or on the five demands. They bear the responsibility for allowing the British ruling class to engage in such callous manoeuvres at the expense of the lives of the prisoners.

The only way forward in both Britain and Ireland is to build an anti-imperialist campaign of such strength and militancy that it will force the British ruling class to grant the demands of the prisoners.

Hunger strike goes on

If the British government thought that the repetition of their intransigent attitude in their statement read to the prisoners after Joe McDonnell’s death would at last break the prisoners’ spirit they soon got their answer. Only a few hours after the death of Joe McDonnell the prisoners announced that he was being replaced on hunger strike by another prisoner, Pat McGeown from Belfast. At the same time outside the H-Blocks the nationalist working class also showed that they were far from being demoralised — indeed this latest example of the callousness and deceit of the British government only fuelled their anger. The militant youth took to the streets once more in Belfast, Deny and Newry, and on the afternoon of 8 July nationalist working class people throughout Belfast walked out to attend protest rallies in different areas of the city.

At one such rally on the Falls Road the speakers reiterated the determination of those outside the prisons to continue to support the prisoners until their demands were met. Loud applause also greeted the reference by one speaker to the riots in Liverpool. He pointed out that the racist British government had refused to authorise the use of plastic bullets there because they were too dangerous, yet such bullets were freely used to kill and seriously injure Irish people — only that morning in fact a woman had been critically injured by a plastic bullet while further up the Falls Road a young man had been shot dead by the British Army. After the rally the crowd marched up the Falls Road to the home of Joe McDonnell’s widow, not only to show their sympathy with her loss but also as a demonstration to the British government that they remain as determined as the prisoners themselves to continue the struggle for which Joe McDonnell gave his life.

Present Hunger Strikers

Those presently on hunger strike are: Kieran Doherty TD, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Thomas McElwee, Paddy Quinn, Michael Devine, Lawrence McKeown, Pat McGeown. Victory to the Hunger Strikers!

 Joe McDonnell

Image: Republican News

On Wednesday 8 July Joe McDonnell became the fifth Irish Republican prisoner of war to be murdered by British imperialism in the current hunger strike.

In the early 70s Joe and his family were driven out of their home by loyalist intimidation. In 1972 Joe was lifted in a 4.00am raid, beaten up and interned. After his release he joined the IRA recognising that imperialism could not be reformed — it had to be destroyed. It was this same understanding that led Joe McDonnell to volunteer for the hunger strike and, eventually, to give his life in the battle for political status.

The RCG sends it deepest sympathy and condolences to the family, comrades and friends of this heroic Irish freedom fighter murdered by British imperialism.

PUBLIC MEETINGS

Victory to the Hunger Strikers! Political Status Now!

LEEDS

Monday 27 July 7.30pm Leeds Trades Club, Saville Mount

BRADFORD

Thursday 23 July 7.30pm Room 3, Central Library

NORTH LONDON

Thursday 16 July 7.30pm North Library Manor Gardens (off Holloway Road) (Nearest tube Archway)

SOUTH LONDON

Wednesday 22 July 7.30pm Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton

GLASGOW

For details ask your local FRFI sellers

EDINBURGH

 For details ask your local FRFI sellers

MANCHESTER

 Wednesday 15 July 7.30 Moss Side Peoples Centre, St Mary Street, Moss Side, (opposite the Precinct)

Brixton/Belfast Forces of Revolution

LIVERPOOL

 Monday 27 July 7.30pm AUEW Hall Mount Pleasant Liverpool 3.

The Fightback Against Racism

 SOUTH LONDON

 Wednesday 26 August 7.30pm Lambeth Town Hall Brixton

South London Hunger Strike Action Committee Meets every Thursday to plan activities in support of the Hunger Strikers. 7.30pm Buckmaster House, Stockwell Park Estate, Brixton

North London Hunger Strike Action Committee Meets every Thursday to plan activities in support of the Hunger Strikers. 7.30pm at Mitford Centre, Mitford Road (off Tollington Way)

National Demonstrations

 Victory to the Hunger Strikers

 Manchester

 Saturday 18 July Assemble: All Saints, Oxford Road 1.30pm

 Leeds

 Wednesday 29 July Assemble: Potternewton Park Harehills Ave, Leeds 7 1pm

• Railton Road Office Broken Into! Money Urgently Needed to Replace Machinery! On 1 July [1981] our office was broken into and badly damaged. Typewriters, tape recorders and many other essential items were stolen and extensive damage done. This is an added burden at a time when our financial situation is already is already stretched with moving premises and preparing for a monthly FRFI! Help the revolutionary cause by sending as big a donation as you can [NB: APPEAL NOW CLOSED] to: Larkin Publications BCM Box 5909 London WC1N 3XX