unions and 208 observers.
The importance of the Irish struggle for the entire British working class was emphasised by many speakers and delegates. It was Paisley himself who once declared that a defeat of the status quo in tne noren or ireland would be a defeat for 'civilisation' everywhere. We know what Paisley means by.
and the British army brass was amply demonstrated by another speaker, Dr Tim Shallice of the British Society for Social Responsibility. in Science.
INCREASING
He elaborated on the stages by which repression in the North of Ireland had been stepped up since 1968. It is a fact, or example, tat waist in 1yr1 tere were only 17,261 house searches (often involving the destruction of the house), in 1974 there were 71.000 such searches It is difficult for workers in Britain to imagine what these searches entail and how terrifying they are for working class Catholic families. But for workers in the north of Ireland the dawn bang at the door is only too familiar in the antiUnionist areas.
Dr Shallice illustrated how the British army nad systemancally developed and "improved' upon its anti-working class skills. Crowd control has now gone beyond the early primitive days of water cannon and rubber bullets fired point blank at 160 mph (sending 70 people to hospital in the first 18 months). New perimented with such as the squawk bow which can paralyse a crowd by totally disorienting it. And now vicious in Ireland a realistic possibility. This was the assessment of Eamonn McCann, one of the main speakers at the conference. It was an opinion echoed by many of the 325 delegates.
In all, the conference was attended by 43 delegates from 34 trades councils; 138 delegates from 81 trade union branches; five delegates from shop stewards committees; and 62 delegates from official Labour Party organisations of which 10 were LPYS branches. In addition there were 77 delegates from 37 student plastic bullets have replaced the old rubber bullets which were so widely and randomly shot at the Catholic population that many a tourist was able to pick one up off the pavement as a macabre souvenir COMPUTER By the middle of last year the army had installed a computer which although not yet fully operational is able to store and rapidly reproduce details on the majority of the anti-Unionist population.
This is extremely useful in assisting the joint work of the military and the police.
Indeed, although Brigadier Kitson failed to get military/civilian agreement in 1971, a Civil Service "Mr Fix-it' has been attached to the military.
In fact between 1972 and 1975, the Brun ruling class nas been able to deverinsurgency force in the world! Apart from its experiences in something like 50 small wars since 1945, it has been receiving very concentrated practice in the streets and counci estates of the north of Ireland.
As Red Weekly has explained many times, the experience gained by the ruling class in Ireland will be very useful to them in Britain as the class struggle hots up.
It was Edward Heath who told the United Nations that the big danger of the 1970s was not extema war but interna sate He undoubtedly had his eyes fixed on Britain at the time.
This point was made very sharply and Dr Tim Shallice of the BSSRS.
by veteran revolutionary Harry McShane at the conference, when he reminded delegates of the use of troops in the cities of Britain in 1919; when in Glasgow, for example, the major buildings sprouted machine gun nests on their roofs. He explained that when John Mac Lean campaigned te nignt to determine ten own tuture It was also because if Scottish workers denied the Irish that right they would never against the use of Scottish troops in Ireland it was not just becouse the Irish people had In the same way that ultra-reactionaries the workers' movement. In the broad ad hoc committees that would have to be formed to draw in the widest forces from the workers' movement to build for Nov ember and similar events, IMG militants would be arguing for: Troops Out Now!
No Concessions to the Loyalists! Self-determination for the Irish people!' 1080000012 LETTERS
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The Labour Movement Conference on 24 May called by TOM at last made the building of a movement against British troops