IN DEPTH symbolised the beginnings of glasnost on the issue after years in which discussion was silenced in the labour movement. But it is unlikely that the establishment would have tolerated this (compare the relentless struggle against unilateralism) if it wasn't regarded as a serious discussion within its own circles.
Despite all this, the ruling class and its
Labour lieutenants are still firmly wedded to a line of division and repression as the only guaranteed way of shoring up British interests in the short term. But there's no doubt that openings have developed for major debates on the issue for the first time in decades. This has been reflected by public rows within the higher echelons of the media and the legal establishment about the Stalker affair; the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four; Gibraltar and media censorship - identical issues to those studiously ignored by these circles ten years ago.
Irish solidarity activists should intervene and use the opportunity to take new steps in laying the foundations of a withdrawal movement. However the process has been, and will be, very contradictory. Although in recent years the Bakers' Union, Nalgo, NUM, UCATT, NUR, the National
Union of Students and sections of the Labour Party have adopted withdrawal policies of various types - there have been retreats and there is a continued tendency to impose a framework based on an imperialist settlement and the denial of self determination.
Indeed, if one thing unites all the various tendencies within ruling circles it is the need to deny Irish self determination. This, more than anything, is the cement that unites the Tories, Labour and the Irish capitalist parties in their support for the Accord and post-1992 Europe.
Thus qualitatively broadening the support for withdrawal must be combined with a vigorous fight for the democratic right of Irish self determination.
There can be an open discussion on all these issues, a dialogue with those who don't agree with self determination. But the basis for a
Last year saw the launch of a new initiative on Ireland, Time To Go!
It promised a qualitative breakthrough into new broad layers of support that had not previously backed withdrawal, and that it would hold a major march and carnival on the anniversary of the troop deployment.
One year on, the results are, to say the least, mixed.
It began with a lot of more or less famous people putting their names to a Charter which admitted that it was necessary for Britain to leave
Ireland. A good start. Then it began to run into heavy ground because of its leadership's attitude to the Troops Out Movement and the Irish in
Britain Representation Group.
All over England, Scotland and Wales, Time To Go (TTG) and Year of Action groups were created, and where they existed in the same area they sometimes worked constructively together - and sometimes were mortal rivals. As a rule Year of Action groups last longer and are more active than their TTG equivalents. This is due in no small measure to the fact that they do not impose support for the Charter as a condition of membership, but simply support for British withdrawal and Irish self determination.
TREE THE BIRMINCHAM SIX
movement cannot be the framework of British people debating their favoured options for Ireland's future. Whatever the intentions of its propagators this would ultimately undermine the cause of Irish self determination. Rather we should seek the opposite: that such a dialogue be a tactic within subordianated to the framework of a fight for unconditional withdrawal.
There are precedents for mass moyements based on principled demands of this type but successfully mobilising masses around basic broad slogans - CND being the most obvious. Socialists must take advantage of the impasse in British strategy after the last two decades and make the building of such a united movement on Ireland a number one priority.
Piers Mostyn
Time to Unite!
The TTG Show in June was the first major public event it organised in 1989. In December 1988 its senior members were anticipating an attendance of two thousand. In fact it was attended by about 600 people.
That the organisers deliberately chose the same weekend as the CND-sponsored Glastonbury festival and the Socialist Movement's conference cannot have helped. Nevertheless the SWP had, by their own admission, 150 comrades present and the bulk of the audience was made up of members and supporters of other left currents. As well as Socialist Outlook, most of the Communist Parties were there, as were Socialist Organiser (though in the light of their line on Ireland nobody quite understood why) and Socialist Action.
The event did not bring along the substantial numbers of the people who have recently become active on the question of British withdrawal. In particular, the large numbers of young Irish people in evidence on last year's Bloody Sunday march were absent. Indeed some of the local. meetings organised by Year of Action groups have attracted similar numbers of people, and certainly were attended by much larger number of Irish and black people.
IN DEPTH
As well as failing to provide the focus for large numbers of activists and the newly interested, TTG is also failing to win the support of large numbers of labour movement bureaucats. NALGO conference may have voted to affiliate to TTG, but that was in the teeth of the leadership's opposition, and Clare Short herself admitted at the show that NALGO had not wanted to put themselves out on a limb by becoming the first bureaucracy to hold what would be widely understood as a 'Troops Out' position.
Nevertheless, despite all the problems with the way in which the policy was adopted, the happy truth remains that one of the largest unions in Britain has adopted what is generally interpreted as a policy in favour of getting British troops out of Ireland. That is something no other campaign has managed to do in the past 20 years. It is also one of the reasons why TTG will be an important part of the withdrawal movement for some time to come.
On top of this, the Gaelic Athletic Association, which contains many thousands of working class, immigrant Irish youth has declared its support for TTG, something no other solidarity movement has achieved.
However if TTG wants to continue as an important component of a broad withdrawal movement, there are a number of problems it is going to have to sort out. The first of these is that it appears to be entirely self-selecting, both in a positive and a negative sense.
The positive sense is that anybody who wants to can set up a TTG group in an area or union. The negative sense is, that having done this, you are given no opportunity to participate in the national organisation's decision making processes. At the show there was no discussion about electing officers, AGMs, nor of an active, conscious membership. The leaders had already elected themselves, won the support of some left groups for the project and are content to let the foot soldiers follow orders.
Realistically, we have to accept that the campaign for British withdrawal will be a long haul. Can the leaders of TTG seriously believe that any campaign can have a future without the involvement of its membership? To state the question bluntly, what will they do if,
Karat Forty for example, the Socialist Workers Party decides to move on to pastures new, thus depriving them of large numbers of unquestioning activists? It will not be possible to create a large, dynamic, campaigning organisation without democracy.
But the question of democracy is inseparable from the kind of organisation the organisers of TTG want it to be. At the moment it sees its primary purpose as that of building a movement which will switch the debate on Ireland from whether or not Britain should withdraw, to how and when the withdrawal should take place. Unfortunately, too much of the debate which took place at the show was about the shape of Ireland after British withdrawal, because some on the left in Britain forget that they do not have the right to impose their schemas.
That is not simply a consequence of Britain's imperialist history, it is also a result of the parameters that TTG has set itself. If TTG wants both to remain in existence and a credible part of the withdrawal movement, it must begin to clearly distinguish between its supporters who are committed to British withdrawal and those, mainly in the labour movement bureaucracy whom it wishes to persuade. This would best be achieved by clarifying its political basis as being support for the two demands of British withdrawal and Irish self determination.
It must also abandon the megalomaniac pretensions of some of its leaders to hegemonise the withdrawal movement. This is sectarian and disruptive. Experience, most recently the rally with Bernadette MoAliskey in London, shows that all the elements of the withdrawal movement are able to work around common events. This unity in action shows the real way forward to building a mass campaign for withdrawal, in which the orientations of the various trends complement each other and will bring tens of thousands of people onto the streets of Britain.
If, after the August 12 march in London, the strengths of TTG and the Year of Action can be brought together in this way, there is real potential for a new growth in the movement for British withdrawal and Irish self determination.
Liam Mac Vaid
Page 24 SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 17, Summer 1989