jointly by the Labour Committee on Ireland and the Committee for Withdrawal from Ireland of articles on issues ference MARTIN COLLINS looks at the tasks withdrawal.
Mick Martin Hammersmith Trades Council opened the conference by stressing that while Ireland had been widely aired within the constituency Labour parties it needed the same to happen In the unions change in Labour's Irish policy.
The first session heard two widely differing views of the situation from Irish trade unionists. Inez McCormack, a NUPE regional officer from the North of said that British activists had a lot to learn about the conditions tac ing the unions in the NorFirst there was the 'normal" situation fighting the government people, three quarters of them delegated from trade unions and Labour parties, met last weekend to discuss getting Britain out of Ireland. The conference, called was a big step forward in organising opposition to British policy in Ireland and making a break from Tory policies. In the first of a series discussed at the conof socialists in this country fighting for British and the bosses against the low wages leven if these problems severe in Ireland). Then there is the 'colonial situa tion' By dividing up Ireland, and splitting the Irish VINCES Catholics and Protestants, between the rulers have Dara veed corrupted the workers' movement in divided the unions separate Dublin-besed and London-based organisinc workers of dif ferent religions.
Inez argued that the Bennite alternative economic strategy supthe status qua through silence Ireland. What is needed she said, is a massive in jection of money MOTTE economy of the North, to make the Unionists an of DOGAN TARKAN, exiled socialist editor and ter they cannot refuse.
Unionist workers that the gover ment was going to promote a united Ireland, and. that they could either accept the money SOOTICA decide to reject it, but get the political solution anyway. workers have in common wages unemployment, cuts etc., ten vou Can unity in action. This in turn will create long term atmosphere in which issues such as the POTTERe socialist society can be discussed Matt pointed out that such a papering over the cracks doesn't work. You can't turn your back on the tact of a British army of occupation. The national question runs through and shapes the ways in which Sectarianism, he said will only disappear when its cause - the division of Ireland into two separate undemocratic statelets is ended. withdrawing from Ireland Revolutionary socialists in Ireland tend to snare inis view. in ine re cent Irish Bernadette McAliskey. the Peoples' Democracy candidate in Dublin showed how the views of an Irish might be put forward. She made i clear that getting a united Ireland and a united work. not by the generosity of a Labour government new status for Ireland but by building mass movement reland against imperialist intervention, Troops The presence of British troops in the north is the BOS. pressing concern because it is their guns and plastic bullets which prop up the rest. But no less imPortant see ne was and division makes it easier for workers to be trampled on. She argued for workers to take over factories, particularly when faced with redu dancies Only if the workers - Ireland begin to take co trol of industry, can son the running economy which has be bled dry by the prof makers organise movement against division of Ireland whic looks forward to a sociali republic holds 4.0 something positive Protestant workers just the crumbs off th capitalist table which a labelled "privileges' at th moment.