IN BRITISH PRISONS there are approximately 400 category A prisoners, those considered top security. and nearly 25 per cent of these are Irish political prisonels It is a fact that out of 44,000 prisoners in jail, 400 are category A and the Irish prisoners are all placed in this category. And even within this small minority, Irish •olteals alc discriminated against further. being called variously 'Special A', or 'Irish A' prisoners, the main form being the terrible visiting conditions which are imposed under the pretext of security, exclusively against the political prisoners.
Despite the Office recognising that are different from other prialbeit in the SOrICIO.
measures taken naslu against InCl. they refuse to transfer us to The second obiection, that there is no procedure in the bureaucratic machinery to Ireland as well as four Republicans who underwent a mammoth hunger strike in which Michael Gaughan died and for which Frank Stagg later died.
Mrs Thatcher made This desire to help Irish prisoners in Britain the prison gates. Whest does extend a sentence is completed the Special Branch are waiting whisk the free man off to an exclusion of whois been offered compensation foi une nunes Warders have been convicted of assault. only to receive paltry sentences. The clicht of the prisoners is made worse by une anguisn suffered by the relatives financial restrictions placed on them by ravellin! over Ireland, but also restric tions on visits placed by the police and restrictions placed on mail by the prison censor.
Although even visitor is photographed ane rsseo es suione weeks before a visit by the Special Branch many are arrested and questioned, ine most tragic being the case o!
Conion wes arrested in London visiting his son and died in prison a neglected illness.
REPUBLICAN PRISONERS Hull Prison PS We thank Owen Carron MP for visiting us on March and work ne ts coing on the transfer of Irish prisoners prisons.
• Anyone wishing to help should contact Owen Carron MP at The Clinic, 7 Market Street, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, Ireland. THE ARTICLE Arn the Militant Butler tendency in SC No 234 was a useful jumping off point in coming to grips with this current.
Militant is the rapidly expanding group the British left today and . occupies central positior in the labour movement. It has to be politically confronted, healthy elements of whom there are many won over and the organisation marginalised ana i possibie destroyca This means being fully appreciative DOLI strengths and weaknesses.
Militant has given up building a revolutionarı While the leaderships revoluuonay are regarded being petty bourgeois or Stalinist, the social democratic Pasok government in Greece - а member of the Second International WOOSt treacherous leaderships nave soia oul ine working class on countless occasions CaLCu revolutionary!
This absurd state of affairs exposes Militant's adaptation to the bureaucracy, resulting acco cill tactic into the Labour Party When struggles do erupt, like the rail unions' fight against flexible rostering. Militant's resolutionmongering positive brake on te struggie.
In line with the bureaucracy's narrow, seclold and chauvinistic tion explains away class struggle in tenns oi wases. Coruuons and economic issues: the oppression of blacks and women, has until recently been a total non-starter for it.
Militant is a sterile sect, ‹insular outlook sel tarian and opportunist in pracuce But unke an other left group it has consistently had a firm and growing base the and Young Socialists, and high presence Une U auc and WOlKIOICC This overwhelmingly proletarian organisation is centrally placed to take advantage of the radicalisation of sections of the workforce.
Moreover Militant has taken advantage of this by operating as a highly train. ed and disciplined combat unit. It has been able to act as a pole of attraction to which workers have been recruited on the basis of agreement a clear, albeit inadequate gramme min educati cal becoming politica салте ceocae co e ding and building of the tendency.
The way to take up and break Militant - - a proces already begun by SC and Revolution supporters, with increasing success is to root themselves in the unions and within that framework the LP and YS, and turn these organisations outward around propaganda mass action, over hose questions tor which Milltant has inadequate all: alsWCis Reagan's war drive and the struggle Central America, Ireland, and the oppression of women and Black workers In this way radicalising layers of workers particularly youth, will be won to our politics as op. posed to Militant's, along with many workers trom Militant itself.
Brixton