For there along with Lenin, A J Cook, Keir Hardie and George Harvey, a local miners' leader, is the face, on the top left hand corner, of James Connollý.
James Connolly was the greatest socialist the islands of Britain and Ireland have ever produced. and theoretician, he made contribution socialist because, as an agitator and activist, he was an • outstanding revolutionary.
Painted Connolly's face was painted off this banner in 1947. By then he was over 30 years dead, having been shot by the British Army for his part in the Irish Rising of Easter 1916.
In many ways. stayed for so long, labour movement's attitude to Ireland is a dark, dreary and squalid business.
No more so than the last ten years when the cheered on British imperial the internment camps, the H blocks, the police the no-lur machine of the British Army.
it was icit to ollels loprotest, dmesty International, the Rights, Irish cardinals, even Us politicians. But not, or at least not in any substance, the Labour left.
When quizzed on this, most of the Labour left produce a variety of excuses. 'It's a difficult question', they say. Great, because, as Marxist writer an outstanding It is a thought. Great, British guns.
it is remarkable his image for the history of the British economic whether in government or out, democracy.
policy in Ireland:
courts and the death European Court of Human Gardens, 'We may do more harm British policy.
Silence What has their 'not speaking out' led to? A total of 2,000 dead. Words, it is said, can kill; but so can silence.
"difficult question'
starting point is other than the right of the Irish people to décide their own future, interterence from The simple fact is that as far as Ireland goes the Labour left has not only proved part of the British problem, it has been part of the British oppression of a people, who, taken as a whole, demand no more than self-determination. Reluctant That is why we can argue over the tactics for strategies, Labour But until the Labour left take a socialist position on Ireland, we shall be most reluctant to say that they are comrades of ours.
*For further discussion on Labour Party policy on Ireland come to the Labour Committee on Ireland Conference at North Library, London N7 on Saturday 29 March. Details: 5 Stamford Hill, London N76. Labour Party members only. only if your without Manor BLENDER