"The violence MP, Eddie Loyden MP, Joan Maynard MP, Ron Thomas MP, Stan Thorne MP, 1976 should therefore hand it over to the people to solve... all-out civil war…...
made them tolerate the troubles for quite a long time.' The historian AJP Taylor, 1976.
people.
in 1920-21.
and within the UK.
reasserted.' Michael Mullen, and General Workers Union, June 1979. in the country as a whole they are a political majority.
so many other parts of the world in the past.' Joan Maynard MP, 1979.
Labour Party to support withdrawal from Northern Ireland....
mitment to end British rule.
Irish problem'.
Socialist Challenga 19 June 1980: Page 10 'WHAT the government has done, and continues to do, is to underwrite the perpetuation of the Northern Ireland state as it was set up in 1921. This is the most dangerous of the options open. It offers no solutions. It is not a recipe for peace in Ireland, but for peace between the parties at Westminster.
'It should now be clear that bipartisanship over Ireland means that policy is dictated today, as it has been since the end of the last century, by the Tories and the Ulster Unionists.
in Northern Ireland, which has logically spread to Britain, is the result of repression and injustice.' Andrew Bennett MP, Sydney Bidwell MP, Maureen Colquhoun MP, Martin Flannery MP, Tom Litterick "The British have always been the root of the trouble in Ireland for the past 400 years...The British governments have successively failed to solve the problems of Northern Ireland. They 'I don't know what the term bloodbath means. If it means native is not between an entirely peaceful Northern Ireland and a Northern Ireland in which a lot of people will be killed. If the British withdraw some sort of settlement would be arrived at. British withdraw some sort of settlement would be arrived at.
You can't tell what it is because the forces in play can't be judged until they can operate. I have very grave doubts whether, faced with the responsibilities of a position after the British withdrawal, the Protestants would, in fact, resort to an "The Irish problem is undoubtedly difficult because British people have been interfering there for four hundred years and I suspect that many of them can't get it out of their heads that the British know much better how to rule Ireland — how to run Ireland — than the Irish know themselves. It is a view which has "The essence of the "Irish Dimension" is this: the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland — some 40 per cent of the population as a whole — form part of the political majority of the Irish "They are so by virtue of the fact that they are mainly nationalist in politics and would prefer to be ruled by the Irish rather than by the British governments, their predecessors having been incorporated in the United Kingdom against their will 'Partition has denied them their rights as a majority, therefore, and turned them into a minority within the North 'It seems to me that a permanent settlement cannot be THE Tory plans for Ireland should be opposed by all those who call themselves That can be said without even knowing tae precise delalls.
The reason is simple: Tories have no intention of giving, to all the Ireland, the right to determine the future of all the people of The importance of the principle of self-determination and what it means in the specific Irish context is explained in the extracts from Ireland - Voices for Withdrawal reprinted on these two pages.
This pamphlet also vides ample breadth of feeling in this country for British withdrawal. For that reason, and for the general excellent quality of the poet, it aeriom presenty material available on Ireland.
thing does not do, meant as a criticism, is to map out how the sentiment expressed within it can be harnessed into building a strong and effective movement play its part in forcing Britain out of Ireland. IN A few days, the Tory government is to publish its plans for the future of the North of Ireland. Whatever their exact nature, one thing is certain: the Tories will insist that the north-east of Ireland remains under British control.
But that is easier said than done. In the North of Ireland the resistance to British rule continues, while in the South the Irish Prime Minister, Charles Haughey, under pressure from his electorate, is demanding that Britain declare itself in favour of Irish unity and British withdrawal.
In Britain, too, there is a growing realisation that the only peaceful solution Britain has to offer Ireland is to get out. In London last weekend 250 people attended a 'Forum for Withdrawal; there specific deadline by socialist.
Britain should the people of mittee.
The third organisation is within pro- Party evidence pampresently pamphlet and this is not which can reproduced.
On The CWI is different from what is necessary the TOM in that it does not set which country dedicated Ireland, nor does it explicitly endorse the demand for self-determination for Ireland as a political unit. Organisationally have the CWI is also different from several years. TOM in that it has no branch That structure, but is organised and run by a London-based com- misrepresenting as, and the sides apart' Committee on Ireland, set up specifically to raise the issue of the Labour "terrorists'.
There The basis of the LCI is are growing signs that Ireland will become a significant issue in the Labour Party; and the recent launch of Charter '80, a campaign seeking 'human rights for Irish political prisoners', promises to make an issue of the conditions prisoners are held in the H Block at Long Kesh and the women's prison in Armagh.
These two pages chart the growing movement in Britain for withdrawal from Ireland. Extracts from a new pamphlet, Voices for Withdrawal, are opposite Republican Movement expresses its view of how an Irish solidarity movement can be built in Britain.
Below GEOFF BELL, one of the speakers at last weekend's Forum, gives his view.
sum total has managed to build - a movement with mass support in this to getting Britain out of Ireland The failure of such a current to emerge is largely due to the political circumstances that existed in •Britain for is, the. success of governments is happening in the North of Ireland in the first instance, the Army 'keeping two or more recently, tain the Army defending the com munity from 'criminals' are real signs that this is beginning to change.
other. process for The scope of the contributhe Voices Jor Withdrawal pamphlet is just one indication of this. Another is the increasing interest being Illative within the In All of which suggests that it may now be realistically build of mass campaign has evaded the Irish last year. movement in this How can this campaign be should CWI, Socialist Challenge believes - as it always has done - that the two political demands of the Troops Out Movement are, at this point. in time, the only "for such' under which the Provisional novement On the political level, to agree that Britain has no right to be in Ireland but to say that Britain should leave immediately is contradictory and confusing.
On the practical level, the immediate withdrawal troops is less likely to produce a Loyalist backlash than the announcement or withorawa within a couple of years. In the latter case the Loyalists would have time to organise and mount such a campaign of terror, both in Ireland and Brithat the government could be pressured into stay-