ULSTER: DECISIVE TEST

SUNDAY'S demonstration by the Anti-Internment League has shown that the Tory declaration of 'direct rule' has not only confounded the confusion of the Irish protest movement, but also blown its credibility sky high.

The 6,000 turn-out (the organizers expected 25,000) and the political disorientation of the speakers was a clear expression of the fact that this could well be the swan song of the petty-bourgeois nationalist movement.

Like the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and the Revolutionary Socialists Students' Federation of 1968, its death agony might be somewhat protracted. But there is little doubt that its prospect of survival or revival is as remote as the proverbial Dodo bird.

This is because the Anti-Internment League, its leaders and sponsors-from the International Marxist Group, the International Socialists and the Republican movement-have consciously opposed the basic Marxist principle that the liberation of Ireland is impossible without the overthrow of Toryism in Britain. This demands the unity of British and Irish workers in a joint struggle to overthrow British imperialism.

This is the most important lesson • of the history of the last 100 years of AngloManchester Irish relations.

Instead, the revisionist protestors have ignored the decisive role of the working class and put aside political clarity and principled struggle in the interests of building a non-exclusive, single-issue movement which embraced the most contradictory and irreconcilably opposed class interests.

So when the Tories proclaimed direct rule the protest movement began to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Today it finds itself a victim of its own political inconsistency and radical opportunism. militant If anyone expressed this crisis of radical protest it must surely have been Miss Bernadette Devlin- the MP for MidUlster.

When she spoke and acted with courage mood— and firmness against the brutal occupaUlster and its representtion regime es Westminster, Workers Press published her statements because we Fourth believed, and still do, that her actions were a positive contribution to the struggle for the liberation of Ireland and the joint struggle of Irish and British It also helped to expose the cowardly sit-in opportunism the Labour lefts who have remained silent and inactive on It is for the same reason then that we held now criticize the extremely confused utterances of Miss Devlin.

For over six months she has correctly stated that the main issue in Ulster is neither internment, nor Stormont, but FROM STEPHEN JOHNS the Tory government and capitalism. In UNION LEADERS yesterday a meeting in Bolton on January 30 she reported an 'overwhelming' said: 'British and Irish workers in Britain response to their call for a ask what they can do to help the work ban on piecework and overtime in the greater Manchester answer is. "Bring the Tories down"

n her speech to the House of Commons area. As approximately 200,000 in December 1971, Miss Devlin had this engineering workers began the to say about her Tory enemies: bans, men at the fourth 'It is of course, almost ludicrous to occupied factory faced court suggest that the shower on the front action. bench opposite who represent British They are 21 workers at economic imperialism in N Ireland should Sharston Engineering, who do anything .. All I can do is appeal to those who believe in the rights occupied their small factory of the working class, British or Irish, in Cheadle on Friday night after they were told it would to bring down the Tory government and have to close because of the ut in their place a socialist government who will implement the kind of radical work-to-rule. Two of their leaders economic changes we need.' appeared in a Manchester SEE PAGE 2 COL. 1 court yesterday in a civil PROPOSED SIT IN 5804172144 fakORK92K 4WAS ON ERN CEOP "MT-!: sit-ln is written on a blackboard at Bredbury steelworks, the first NW The 24-hour shift sit-ln is written on plant occupled last week.

action brought by the manageElsewhere there were по immediate signs of retaliation from employers, though at seveřal large plants workers are under threat of lock-out if they continue their work-torule.

Bernard Regan, Stockport district secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, said that 75 per cent of workers in the town have responded to the call.

'We are well satisfied with the action our members have taken. We are ready to face a prolonged struggle with the employers and we will deal with retaliatory action as and SHIFT SYS 910 /1 12.13 34567 when it comes.' Bernard Panter, Manchester AUEW district secretary, said as far as he could estimate there had been a 95 per cent response to the work-to-rule. He said there were one or two factories that were out of line, but these were only small.

Already at two Stockport factories — Bredbury steel works and Davies and Metcalfe-—workers have occupied after management attempted to lock them out.

At Sharston Engineering, the workers have literally barricaded themselves in and locked management out of the main workshop. this fight going and we are sure you will complete our target of £1,250.

Help us in every way. Go all out immeRush every donation Immediately to :

186a Clapham High St, London, SW4 7UG.

IN APERATION *WED 22" MARCH* Trouble began when management refused to give an answer to a claim for a f7 wage increase, a 35-hour week and longer holidays. The men walked out and were told after two days that their action had caused the closure of the factory.

It was this that made decide to occupy', said one their spokesmen yesterday.

Management are seeking a court order to have them removed. But John Tocher, Manchester's divisional organizer of the AUEW, has threatened a mass picket around the factory if police try to move in.

PAQE 2 Workers Presa, Tucaday March 28, 1972 AROUND THE-WORLD