SINCE THE BATTLE OF RED LION SQUARE, a chorus of voices has been trying to shift the blame for Kevin Gately's death away from the police and onto the revolutionary left. The National Front are now trying to lead this choir, as they made clear at a press conference in London on Monday.
The Front will tell the Scarman Tribunal that the moral and probabty legal responsibshity thes with the Readership of the IMG: They will recommend that we are imprisoned for inciting violence against them and that in future the leaderships of left wing groups be held criminally liable for all illegal acts alleged against demonstrators.
According to the NF the left went to Red Lion Square with one parpose in mind-to deliberately create violence. Any target would do. Our aim was to smear the NF as a violent organisation. For a peace-loving group like the NF, a smear like that would compromise it with the electorate.
So Kevin Gately was only an innocent dupe, a sacrificial lamb in a devilish conspiracy by the left.
Now, let's got a few things straight.
The responsibility for Kevin's death hes firmly with the police. They provocatively changed the agreed route of the anti-fascist demonstration in Red Lion Square without any warning and then used an unprecedented level of violence against the demonstrators.
As for the fascists, we do not need smears. It is these respectable men and women of the Front who were associated with attacks on picket Red Weekly 25 July 1934 Page B lines at Imperial Typewriters in Lcicester, a maoist bookshop in Brighton (whose staff were badly beaten up), a black student in Nottingham who was nearly blinded, and whe assaulted demonstratars on the lish Martyrs March in Manchester.
The Front's friends in Europe, the bombers of Ordre Nouvenu in France and MSI in Italy, also claim to be 'non violent."
The Fascists are compelled to hide ail this under the carpet. Like the MST, the Front know that if they admitted io their violence the police and the /aliciary may do little, but hundreds of thousands of workers, remembering the evils of fascism, would actively oppose them. The police might allow the National Front to match through London armed with apiked flagpoles as on 15 June, but the trade union movement would sweep them from the streets.
That: why it's necessary for the fascists to blame the violence on the left. That's why the Front will scurry along to Tustice Scarmin-in the hope that the stute can be pushed into doing to the labour movement what the fascists are not yet strong Cough to do.
Naturally, playing hide and seek isn't easy, We have eyes and ears. Within the Front there are those who condemn the leadership as 'soft': others have split off from the Front to form breaka way groups like the NDFM with an open militarist orien tation. But the fig leaf is too small. We will continue to expose the Front for what it is an organisation which seeks to destroy the workers movemeat.
As for the Scarman Tribunal itseif, its job will be to get the police Red Weekly, 97 Caledonian Road, N.I. off the hook. Scarman, Widgery and Justice Mais of Shrewsbury are part of the same state apparatus which Killed Gately. And if they can get away with it, they will use his death as a pretext for a further strengthen. ing of the police and the courts against the working class.
The IMG will not be intimidated either by the fascists, the police, or Scarman-from continuing to orginise opposition to the fascists on the streets, Along with others, we will organise against the Front in Mancheater and London in August and September. And we know that all tbose opposed to racism and fascism will demonstrate there in action where they think the responsibilits for Kevin's death really lies.
THE TROOPS OUT MOVEMENT is to sponsor an October demonstration, demanding the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and self-determination for the Irish people: Representatives of POM and the British Peace Council have greed to call jointly for the setting up of an ad-hoc committee to organise the demonstration.
This news was reported to a meeting in North London last Tues day, called to set up an Edinonton and Enfield TOM. The meeting was a big success with over fifty people attending.
Alastair Renwick, an ex-soldier and member of the INC. spoke about the SHER HERS TO OF the ArMY In TO mid-sistics, from counter-insurgacy to internal security He described the way in wiled lechniques of prococation,
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