the PTA - possibly as permanent legislation, and with the addition of more repressive proyisions. A pamphlet on Ireland distributed at the Tory Party conference, for example, called for the introduction of identity cards for Roy Jenkins - his Prevention of Terrorism Act has been a green light for repression.
all Irish people living in Britain. It also proposed that every Irish person should be forced to register at a local police station, and that landlords in particular should be forced by law to notify the police of any Irish tenants.
These proposals were not adopted by the conference, but they show the dangers inherent in the existing Act and the trials which are stage-managed under it.
The case of Pat Arrowsmith also demonstrated that the Labour Government will not stop at the Irish community - under this Act anyone who speaks the truth on Ireland is fair game for the imperialist witch-hunt.
CONSPIRACY
The PTA is probably the most serious legalised violation of democratic rights in this country today. However, it has also been supplemented with the use of conspiracy laws to make it easier for Westminster to trample on any opposition to its policy in Ireland. Over the past two months 22 supporters of the BWNIC campaign have been indicto Disaffection Act. Decoded, this means that they distributed a leaflet to British soldiers giving them information on what they can do if they are dissatisfied with their role in Ireland.
The arrest of the BWNIC supporters was not only an attack on their rights, it was also an attack on the rights of soldiers and their relatives to discuss and organise on this issue.
As far as the Labour leaders are concerned, the soldiers and their relatives have no rights They should simply act like robots who blindly follow the orders of the army brass and the bureaucrats at Westminster.
However, the soldiers are the ones who have to do the fighting, who have to sacrifice their lives or lose their limbs. Why shouldn't they have the right to ask why? Why should they not have the right to say yes or no, to support or oppose the orders given to them?
SIMPLE ANSWER
The answer is simple. Both Wilson and Rees are fully conscious that if the truth is told and discussed by soldiers and their relatives, there is every possibility that the soldiers would choose to leave Ireland. This has already happened in many countries throughout the world such as Portugal, France and the USA where soldiers have begun to stand up for their rights and have refused to remain as an unthinking instrument of repression for society's exploiters.
It is these very same rights which the Labour bureaucrats are seeking to deny to the majority of British people - and for the same reason. They want us to become like the soldiers, unthinking robots who blindly follow their dictates. For this reason they have conspired to deny the right of free speech to the BWNIC and to the Troops Out Movement, who are unable to use Trafalgar Square for Irish demonstrations. This is why they have introduced the PTA - to intimidate, harass, and silence opposition to their policies. Fundamentally, they are scared that the British working class will find out the truth about Ireland.
The Constitutional Convention, once heralded as a means of promoting reconciliation and agreement between Protestants and Catholics in the North of Ireland, would like to be used by the Loyalists as the funeral of 'power sharing and the Irish dimension'. The Loyalists are in fact intent on holding the funeral service for the Convention in the Convention Chamber on 7 November.
That is the date when the Convention will adopt its final report, which will then be submitted to Westminster. From the beginning it was clear that the Loy. alists had no other objective but to secure the Convention's stamp of approval for restoring the Protestant ascendancy in government; and this is the plan they will present to the British Parliament as the Convention's final report. The only mention power-sharing or an Irish dimension gets in the report is by way of a clear statement of total rejection.
Despite the recent dispute between Craig and Pais+ ley there can be no doubt that the UUUC proposals have the support of sections of the Protestant working class. Craig and his supporters, have not been able to win support amongst the Loyalists in the Convention for even a watered down version of their proposals — for despite his "discovery' by the capitalist press as some sort of moderate Craig only differs on how to recreate the ascendancy, not on whether this should be done. But the Loyalists are in a frenzy. A number of factions in the Loyalist camp have in turn denounced Craig fiercely them being the UWC, which organised last years Loyalist stoppage.
So the Loyalist hardliners have prevailed both in their own camp and in the Convention. as no surprise to anyone, not even the British Government - except, that is, for the Social Democratic & Labour Party, which had staked its political life on the success of the Convention. For the SDEP the Convention must now seem to have been a totally profitless venture. Fitt and his colleagues have always insisted that Britain would not allow power to return into Loyalist hands alone, they always believed they would be given a piece of the action, a few ministerial jobs for the boys. Such hopes are now being shattered. - the latest amongst This can come ulation is concerned. Their participation in the Convention, which has allowed the Loyalists to attempt to cover a take-over with a democratic mask, has produced a wide scepticism amongst the anti-Unionists that the SDLP is capable of securing even the customary dog's crumbs from the master's table. The people in the ghettoes have witnessed an intensification of Loyalist assassinations and British Army harassment; meanwhile in the Convention chamber Fitt, Devlin and Co. exchange pleasantries with the political heavyweights of the Loyalist camp who condone such actions.
INDICTMENT
The final indictment of the SDLP came when the VUUC revealeu tnat the SDLP was willing to take the chair of a security committee; that is, the SDLP was not - as in the past - simply limiting itself to finding excuses for the repression of the Catholies, it was now prepared to help pian this repression. Some members of the SDLP are taking this policy to its logical conclusion, and are now appealing for support for the infamous Royal Ulster Constabulary.
The plight of the SDLP and the failure of the Convention highlight once more the fact that British, imperialism cannot impose any stability on tne Six Counties based on a compromise between Loyalism and the Catholic population, except over the broken bones of the minority.
Those who think that Britain is simply going to withdraw, like the Provisional leadership, are displaying an ignorance of the lessons of the last seven years' struggle. Can they really believe that after such a long campaign to maintain its presence, Britain will simply abanaon its hold on the North? Instead of these day dreams initiatives should be being taken to prepare the minority for the development of Loyalist strength and for the inevitable renewed onslaugut by me troops on the minority. the Provisional leadership and that of the Official Republican Movement to unite in common protest with other anti-imperialist organisations is the major obstacle to organising the necessary resistance to the red weekly 30 october 1975 The refusal of An IMG call for a national demonstration by NALGO with other unions against cuts, redundancies and unfilled obs was amenaca away ana counter posed to local action and the building ireland/nalgo Instead the IS, for the first time, allowed a motion supporting the principle of affiliation while declaring it to be 'not one of high priority.