Fheis) in Dublin. In order to assess the developments in Sinn Fein and their implications for those in the British labour movement campaigning for British withdrawal from Ireland, Mick Woods and Kevin Flack, for Socialist Viewpoint, interviewed Nadine Finch, a member of Hackney North Labour Party, who attended the conference on behalf of the NALGO Campaign for a United Ireland. SV: What are your impressions of the direction Sinn Fein is headed following the decisions of the Ard Fheis? Nadine Finch: Firstly. the Women's Department has worked over the years on the abortion issue. SF has been moved, step-by-step, from fundamental opposition to abortion to their new position of a woman's right to choose. It was won by arguing that if they call for self-determination for the Irish people, they should call for self-determination for women as well. My feelings were very much that it would fall on the woman's conscience so men could ignore it — but it shows a remarkable breakthrough and will lead to many more radical women joining SF. It should be remembered that two years ago SF adopted secular constitution although links with more radical elements in the Catholic Church are obviously still strong, especially in community campaigns, for instance against drugs. SV: What is the direction of their economic policy? Nadine Finch: SF has become more involved in trade union work recently
Ffor instance in supporting the ITGWU campaign against unemployment, and the Dunnes workers strike against handling South African goods. Their policy on nationalisation and general economic policy is to the left of the British Labour Party. The economic debate was a central Issue this year. The following is a passage from their policy document:
"Furthermore, with James Connolly we believe that the present system
of society is based upon the robbery of the working class and that
Hint é Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams - identilying with international struggles. capitalist property cannot exist without the plundering of labour; we desire to see capitalism abolished and a democratic system of common ownership erected in its stead. This democratic system, which is called socialism, will, we believe, come as a result of the continuous increase of power to the working class. Only by this means can we secure the abolition of destitution and all the misery, crime from that unnecessary evil." and immorality which flow Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p25
The party also oppose privatisation, advocate the setting up of a state construction company to meet the growing housing crisis and ultimately nationalisation of the banking system. The debate on ownership of the land is also obviously more important in Ireland because of the economic situation and their base amongst small subeistence-level farmers increases their opposition to the EEC. Their policy is to ensure land is held either by small farmers cOoperatives for the benefit of all. SV: How are their strategies towards building support in the South changing? Nadine Finch: The leadership were keen to adopt a policy of not contesting elections for the Dail at present but keeping the freedom to do so in the future. This was narrowly thrown out - by 20 votes and abstentionism was re-affirmed as a principle rather than a tactic. SV: And in the North? Nadine Finch: The whole Conference took place with the backgorund of the Anglo-Irish talks and the possibility of the banning of SF. Through the Council election campaigns they have gained both support and active workers. Much campaigning is based
around their Advice Centres. They
are also building support on Trades Councils through work done by the
growing Trade Union Department -
historically based in the manual unions and now growing in the public sector unions such as the teaching unions. SV: How important do SF see inter-
national issues?
Nadine Finch: They have been very
strong in challenging apartheid, with
the Dunnes strike as a focus. They
support strongly the liberation strug; gles in Central America and
Palestine - identification with these
struggles was the starting point for
this year's Presidential speech by
Gerry Adams. NATO is currently a
central issue they are worried
about the installation of new com-
munications systems, visits by war-
ships, and of possible deals to end the
neutrality of the south as a result of
the Anglo-Irish talks.
SV: How can we raise the issue of
Ireland more effectively in the
British trade union movement?
Nadine Finch: Much work is being
done by both the TUIUl and the
Labour Committee on Ireland's Trade Union Department. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has good policy with regard to strip searching and other civil rights issues. So support can be raised in trade unions in terms of solidarity with the Irish unions on these issues, The connec tion between the imposition of the border on the 32 counties and the present situation of military supression leading to civil rights abuses needs to be emphasised. This in turn leads into a discussion of the need for a military and economic withdrawal from the 6 countles. SV: What issues should be raised in the British Labour Party? Nadine Finch: SF are very concerned about the outcome of the Anglo-Trish talks and increased suppression of reports in the Irish media from which • they gain much publicity. They want Invitations from Labour Parties to SF Councillors to come and speak, and In return for delegations, including trade unions and Black delegations, to visit Ireland and work around civil rights issues, as was done over the banning of the TV programme "On the Edge of the Union". Labour CND has an important role to play with regards to stopping Ireland being brought into NATO. SV: How important do you think the defeats of the resolutions on Ireland at Labour Party Conference were? Nadine Finch: I think they showed how much work still has to be done in the trade unions. They have to stop voting down all progressive reolutions and using their often insignificant Northern Ireland membership as an excuse for not adopting policies. It must be recognised that very few
Catholics get employed in areas the craft unions organise in (and Catholic trade unionists have to face up to the fact that many of their branches in the 6 counties are dominated Catholic is racist anti represen Unionists who attitude to any SV: How strong is Sinn Fein's suport amongst the working class Nadine Finch: The Ard very working class Conference, with much younger delegates now. The leaders such as Adams recognise clearly that political power lies with the people. Their power base has always been on the streets. Because of the discriminatory employment practices, they have never had control over union bureaucracies, and have to work at shop floor level. Their appeal is to the working class as a whole - membership is not of course restricted to Catholics and some leadership figures are not Catholic. SV: And how much can SF's proramme be seen to be socialist? Ndine Finch: The Party has changed considerably over the past few years. It may help to look at a couple of extracts from their policy document.:
"Sinn Fein condemns the Free State constitutional position which gives unrestricted rights of private property above the rights of a person to decent accommodation at an affordable rent."
*The only way to create full employment is through state spending and investment and the development of workers co-ops under community control."
"Public ownership or control shall be interpreted as control by the people at the lowest possible unit of government consistent with their requirements." Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p26
HOLE Civil rights abuses arise from imposition of the border,
It is also worth pointing out, after the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth, how democratic the SF Conference is. The platform was overturned In several votes. There is no preference in calling speakers either those on the platform, have to queue member, Including for their turn to speak in a debate.
Their socialist direction shows the strength of their education programmes, and the importance attached to cultural and political development. SV: How do you see the role of the armed struggle? Nadine Finch: SF argue for support for the separate role the IRA play. Unionists have the veto on their side, their state machinery and the British State on top. The IRA is needed to defend the republicans. It is also true that IRA attacks are only directed at economic and political targets. They have not killed women and children with plastic bullets.
It is also important that we do not attempt to tell the Irish how to fight for their own liberation against British rule. It is strange that people who will support armed liberation struggles in South Africa and Nicaragua will not do so in Ireland Labour Committee on Ireland:BM Box 5355. London WIN 3XX.
Ireland and the fight
FOR fifteen years after 1848 there was little mass political agitation in Ireland. In Britain too. Chartism declined rapidly after 1848. leaving the working class with no political organisation of its own.
But in neither country was there a halt in social struggle. In Ireland, agrarian "outrages by the peasant secret societies, the Ribbonmen, continued throughout the 1850s against evictions. And in Britain the growth of trade unionism was reflected in a number of long and bitter strikes such as the engineers in 1851, the Preston spinners in 1853 and the builders in 1859.
The Irish and British traditions of class conflict often united in the ex-
Mass Chartist rally in Kennington, 1848.
for the First International periences of Irish immigrants in Britain such as Michael Davitt. Davitt exemplifies the life of many Irish men of his generation in although for bravery and enterprise he stands head and shoulders above most working class leaders of his day. a former Ribbonman evicted from his land in 1853, who moved with his family to Haslingden in Lancashire where young employed in a cotton factory. Losing an arm in a factory accident, Michael then worked for a printer. dicap did not prove serious: on one occasion he brandished a revolver to protect Haslingden rom being attacked by a mob incited by Protestant bigots. In 1865 he joined the Fenian movement and became
Britain the ideas Davitt's Gaelic-speaking father was was Irishmen, Michael later was their own His han- Catholic church Stephen's Soceity Irish United States, 1860g many fortunately ger romantics turers who developing a movement. Britain. terests Socialist Viewpoint No. 9 December 1985 p27
This is the third and final article of a series on the links between the Irish struggle and the British workers' movement.
By DAVID MOSS centre of the Rossendale circle.
The Fenians had their origin in a secret society established in Dublin in 1858 by James Stephens, a veteran of '48, to fight for a democratic Irish republic. During his exile in Europe, Stephens had come into contact with
Cof Continental revolutionaries such as Blanqui — although the system of organisation he adopted
reminiscent of the United being organised into a pyramid of cells or "circles" who
new only the leader or "centre" of
circle. This was the forerunner of the Irish Republican Brotherhood which masterminded the 1916 Easter Rising.
organisations merged with the nationalist, cultural Phoenix
established by O'Donovan Rossa and, anticipating a rising, the authorities arrested several Phoenix "conspirators" in 1859. The Fenian movement recruited amongst workers and peasants in Ireland and expatriot
workers in Britain and the where in the early Irishmen had gained military experience on one side or the other in the civil war.
There thus existed both the popular base and the military expertise which Young Ireland had lacked in '48. Un-
Othe Fenian method of organisation did not guarantee its im-
munity from spies as was intended. Indeed the leadership of the move-
ment attracted some cloak and dag-
Tand military advenhad no conception of mass revolutionary Stephens himself
wavered and the insurrection was
postponed in 1865 and '66, while the
arrests of Fenians increased in both
Ireland and the industrial towns of
In the same period as this rise of
Fenianism there was a revival of
organisations in Britain which aimed
to promote working class political in-
independently of the two
capitalist parties, the Liberals and
Conservatives. The Trades Unions
were becoming more influential, a
trades council was established in
Glasgow in 1858 and, as a result of
the builders' strike, another was set
up in London in 1860.
By 1862 the Trades had their own
newspaper, The Beehive. Demands
for legislation to improve working conditions in various industries again raised the question of the working class franchise and many unionists adopted the demands of the old Chartists.
There was also a revived interest in international affairs. Trade unionists campaigned against the government's support for Southern States in the American civil war, which was seen as a conflict between democracy and a slave-owning aristocracy. In 1863, meetings were held in solidarity with the uprising against Russia and a deputation was sent to Palmerston ding British intervention on the side of the insurgents. There were also protest meetings against the French occuption of Rome and when the Italian republican Garibaldi visited Britain in 1864 he was greeted with such popular acclaim and massive demonstrations that the government asked him to leave!
Against this background, the need for permanent international links became increasingly apparent, and in 1864 the International Workingmen's Association was launched with George Odger of shoemakers' union as its president and with other leading unionists on its Council. The political programme it adopted was drawn up
Marx who became Association's secretary with Germany.
In 1865, IWMA Council members joined the newly formed National Reform League and played a leading part in the fight to extend the working class suffrage. The following year the International as a whole affiliated to the League. It also made its sympathy with Ireland clear by condemning the maltreatment of Fenian prisoners.
1866 was a worrying year for the British government. there continuing alarm about the "Fenian conspiracy" but also Reform League agitation was gaining pace throughout the country. demonstration and rally in Hyde Park were banned, leading to a clash between marchers and police backed by troops resulting in three menacing unrest in the capital. There was a severe trade depression, high prices and unemploymen! Sheffield latest in the series Outrages", which involved attempts by militant trade unionists to shoot or bomb non-unionists in the cutlery trade.
This was the political climate when the Fenians determined on a rising in 1867 publishing which
made a direct appeal English workers:
...As for you workmen England it is not only your hearts we wish, but your arms. Remember the starvation and degradation brought to your firesides by the op pression of labour. Remember the past. look well to the future and avenge yourselves by giving liber-
trade British
Othe
Polish deman-
Othe ty to your children in the coming
trade struggle for human freedom.
THE PROVISIONAL corresponding GOVERNMENT."
nians from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire, including Michael Davitt and others who had been brought up in England, converged on Chester, intending to seize the Castle, raid the arsenal, hijack a train to Holyhead and ship the arms to Ireland for the Fenian rising. When it became apparent that the authorities had been Not only was doned.
Tas planned. ready and the ill-coordinated risinas A• in various parts of the country were quickly repressed, leaders to go on the run. Two of these, days of rested in Manchester
cessful attempt to release them from a police van on September 18 resulted and the in the death of a constable. It was the
arrest and suspects on dubious evidence, and the governemnt and press baying for blood, which produced a surge of support workers. prociamation ...the London
Wto declare every day more openly for the Fenians and of unheard-of and here secondly an movement." Unfortunately political activity had receded since the passing of the Reform Act in August 1867, which increased the Socialist Viewpoint No. 9. December 1985 p28
The foundation of the First International, 1864 Nevertheless, Herewith we Proclaim the Irish On February I1, hundreds of Fe- condemned leaders who, tion In