activists are - after the experience beginning to view democracy in a different light. They are learning that it means MPs abiding by the wishes of those millions of members in the party which they represent.
Equally, it means ensuring, for all currents in the labour movement, debate free from witch-hunts, gags and censure motions. Freedom of speech - while alien to Sanderson's is being Williams, and her allies on the right, might find such moves profoundly disturbing. But then, as the Guardian recently reported, they have already on the possibility of splitting from CRACK-DOWN forces.
Loyalist allies — in the North.
NEUTRAL?
As Eric Heffer so correctly said, thick and thin, or these pro-Liberal On March 15th, over 15,000 Ulster Loyalists marched through the streets of Belfast to demand sharper curbs from the Tory government against the republican Called by the bigoted Orange Order, the demonstration called tor major changes in the law which has already been 'adjusted' as in on ur las o can down on the democratic rights of the national minority. Chief among these is an attempt to make it a crime - punishable by imprisonment — to remain 'silent' under police interrogation.
The demands for increased repression are not a tee to une Orange bigots. They coincide with those of British army chiefs who have also called for more 'flexibility' in dealing with the nationalist The feeling in army circles was summed up bv a maior currentiv serving in the North who told the Guardian: "Some people believe in selective internment. I believe in selective assassination".
No doubt the army - and their - are worried by the growing confidence and unity emerging among the oppressed minoritv as it seeks to strugale tor its rights. This was reflected most clearly last February when over 10,000 marched through Armagh in protest against the treatment of prisoners denied political status The convergence of thinking between the army and Orange bigots clearly gives the lie to the myth that British forces are in N. Ireland to 'keep the peace'. Far from being a neutral 'peacekeeping force', they are there to aid the loyalist forces in maintaining a system which - for over 50 oppressed the Catholic minority.
Their main thrust - since their entry in 1969 under 'sunny Jim Callaghan' - has been to destroy the struggle for democratic rights launched by that minority by a mixture of intimidation, internment and murder (as on Bloody Sunday).
As Thatcher's much vaunted 'constitutional conference' falls apart - as so many other British initiatives have - the voice of the army chiefs and the Loyalist bigots could once again prevail and the repression in the area escalate.
This is why it has become increasinaiv vital that the campalar to remove the troops from Ireland be stepped up. The army is not there to prevent a blood-bath (as the popular media protest). Its very presence in the streets of Derry & Belfast - upholding a brutal and repressive system -constantly creates te possibility of one. Only removing the army and leaving the Irish free to determine their own future can escape continuing violence in the future Fighting to get the troops out means fighting to break the Labour leaders from their bi-partisan block with the Tories which, instead of defending democratic rights, actually ends up on the same side as the Orange bully-boys. This is true not only for Callaghan but aso benn who. desote nis verda support for a 'united Ireland', opposes the withdrawal of troops We have to fight to win the labour movement to grasp that, protecting te rignts or une Irish people today is the surest way of protecting ten own democratic rights tomorrow when the Tories Decim to empioy trooss over nere against strikers and other working class struggle. the nationalist minority to self-