CP proclaims in Tories

I brand tlevvev:

Pilkington's docks i l Mersevside docker In Cambodia and M-East guerrillas fight Appeal Fund stands at £264 13s 60 YESTERDAY'S post brought £48 16s Ud for the fund, Which brings us a total of £264 13s 6d.

We are sure that this is a beginning of a response to our appeal, but we still have a long way to go. With only 12 days to go, we urge IT IS JUST not a practical proposition to call for the withdrawal of troops from Northern Ireland at the moment?

This was the reply of union official Andy Barr, representing the Irish Communist Party, to a questioner at the CP London District Committee's public meeting on Tuesday evening.

Jack Woddis, speaking on behalf of the leadership of the British Party, was left to outline the Stalinists' full reformist programme, which has gone even further to the right than the Party's line of last year.

In face of the sharp turn to the right in the Unionist Party, and the clear need for an independent working-class mobilization against the government and against the extreme right wing of Craig and Paisley, Woddis advocated the recall of the Westminster Parliament.

"The British government has a clear responsibility' he said. It has the political authority and military strength to bring Craig to heel' (!)

BILL OF RIGHTS The government, he said, should pass a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland and begin an economic 'crash' programme to solve Ulster's problems.

Woddis actually proposed, on behalf of the Stalinists, a conference of the British Tory government, the Lynch 'Green Tory' government of Eire and 'representatives of the people of Northern Ireland', to discuss the constitution of Ulster.

Those who spoke in the discussion for the withdrawal of troops were denounced by Woddis as defeatists, because they had no confidence that these troops-and their Tory masters-could be forced to carry out progressive tasks.

Barr from time to time made demagogic statements like, 'We don't rely on Maudling to sort out our problems; our own people will solve' it,'— but supported the line of Woddis.

WELCOMED

These Stalinists welcomed the move, announced the same day by Gerard Fitt MP, to form a United Opposition Party in Stormont. There are political reasons for this, since Fitt also told the press that he could see no alternative to the Chichester-Clark government.

All this cringing before the Tories and attempts to disarm the working class are going on while the right-wing Unionists (the vast majority of that Party) in Ulster are daily preparing to clamp down on the working class, through the re-arming the RUC and through the campaign for Craig.

The Tories will of course, collaborate in this attack on the working class.

They are already using the pretext of isolated bomb attacks, whether they come from provocateurs or from the frustrations of isolated individuals. to build up the machinery of police repression. Full subacription Two editione £10 a year (For any two day OR (Posted dally) you select £2 10s for three £1 for three months months 24 a year Clapham High Street, London, Organize swa. (Tel: 01-720-2000) Post to: Circulation I would like to subscribe to Workers Press for Name.

LATE NEWS LAY-OFFS AT THORN Sixty workers were laid off yesterday morning at Thorn Electrical's Birtley, Co Durlam, tactory.

70 sheet metal workers have already been sacked from the firm's Team Valley plant after a dispute over a threatened wage cut brought about by new timing rates.

The Tyneside Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions has given the Thorn strikers full support and called on all unions to stop their members working with scab labour inside the plants involved.

GAS REPORT

The Prices and Incomes Board's report on the gas industry proposes that about £100 million could be slashed from the industry's costs, mainly by intensified speed-