IRISH UNITY AND THE BRITISH WORKING CLASS

The sentence on MacStiofain In the early hours of Sunday, November 19, police of the Republic of Eire arrested Sean MacStiofain. The charge against him was membership of an illegal organi. zation, namely the Provisional' IRA of which he is said to be chief-of-staff.

MacStiofain immediately went on hunger strike, and protested that he was being held unlawfully, since there was no evidence found on his person or in his car.

In the past, prominent IRA men have been brought before courts on similar charges and their cases dismissed for lack of evidence. MacStiofain knew, however, that he was up against something quite different. And workers in Britain as well as in Ireland would do well to study immediately what is behind his arrest, conviction and sentence. His release must be strongly demanded throughout the Irish and British labour movement.

To the north, across border in Ulster, which is under 'direct rule' from the Tory government in Westminster, the members of MacStiofain's organization are in daily armed conflict with the security forces. Their methods are those of middle-class nationalism, not revolutionary socialism, but they create a big 'security' problem for British capitalist rule, because in the absence of alternative leadership they are sustained by popular support.

Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath has laid the law down with his fellow Tory, Dublin premier Jack Lynch. In preparation for joint entry into the Common Market and, above all, to strengthen their hands for the disciplining of the working class, Heath insisted that Lynch use the police and courts to undermine the IRA's operating base in the south. MacStiofain was the first victim.

The Irish capitalist class and partition For over 50 years the capitalist parties in Eire (Fianna rall, now in office, and Fine Gael) have had a simple technique for retaining their political hold over the working class. They have always claimed to be opponents of the imperialist-imposed partition between Ulster and Eire.

Lynch and other capitalist politicians will give plenty of speeches commiserating with the plight of the large Catholic minority in Ulster, but they have never had the slightest intention of doing anything about it. They speak once a year about the long-term aim of Irish unity, but they will never fight for it.

On the contrary, the Irish capitalists and their political parties are completely at one with the Tories and capitalists of Britain. A real fight for Irish unity, against British imperialism, of course, would bring the working class on the scene; this working class would deal not merely with imperialism, but with its Irish agents, north and south.

For this struggle, revolutionary socialist leadership, not nationalist leadership, is required.

The Irish bourgeoisie has not a shred of independence from British imperialism. Through partition it shares with British imperialism control over the Irish working class. At the time of World War I, the 1916 Easter Rising, and the subsequent Angloa police i officer's opinion that such is the case. The police al C given wide-ranging new powers for questioning offenders, with two years' jail for anyone refusing to give personal details or accounts of their movements This law, used tomorrow as the instrument to force MacStiofain and the Provisionals into line, will be used the very next day against all soc. ialist and working class forces.

Already the Irish ruling class is equipped with the Broadcasting Authority Act of 1960, invoked against TV and radio reporting of MacStiofain's statement before his arrest. Under this Act, the government called upon the Irish authority any matter that could be calculated to promote the aims or activities of any organization which engages in, • promotes, encourages, or means objective by violent cates the attaining of any poliThis law will be extended, if the Irish and British bourgeoisie have their way, against all political opposition, and particularly against the work ing class.

The next step in Ireland sc far as Lynch and the main political parties there are concerned, is complete and open unity with British imperialism, equipped with their laws and with anti-union legislation- -in Britain and in Eire. Under these circumstances, even the pretence of fighting for some future Irish unity must be dropped by the Irish bour. geoisie. Heath, Whitelaw and Lynch.

This is why they all welcomed direct rule after the removal of Stormont and did not press forward the attack against the imperialist for hom Stormont had operater This is why Fitt and his SDLP have now decided to enter talks with Whitelaw, just as the right-wing leaders of the Protestant Unionist organizations will.

Ireland and the British working class The sending 20,000 troops to Northern Ireland, the arming of an unknown number of thousands of rightwing Protestant forces, the shooting on sight, the interrogation through torture, the massacre at Londonderry-all these must be understood by the British and Irish working-class movements as the reaction of British imperialism to the first wave of working class struggle in Britain and Ireland in response to the present international crisis.

If the British working class does not act against these military-police preparations of its own ruling class and against the sentences on MacStiofain and O'Kelly, it neglects its own future and brings nearer the day when these preparations will be turned against it Glasgow, in Liverpool, in London and everywhere else.

The withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and the ending of partition are vital demands in the preparation of the British working class for its coming struggles.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

November