No35 August/September 1981 20p BRITAIN Thatcher's Britain burns, racist cops rampage e' roo es' come ome In the aftermath of the hot July days-and nights that ripped the mask of social peace from the face of Thatcher's Britain, the guardians of this decaying capitalist order wasted no time in strengthening the machinery of state re­ pression. While the con­ flict on th~ streets still raged, Home Secretary William Whitelaw was giv­ ing his go-ahead to chief constables to stock up with the hardware of mili­ tary/police repression familiar to the residents of Northern Ireland. And even as Thatcher and Whitelaw gave their assur­ ances of offiCial support, the thugs in blue took matters into their own hands to exact revenge for every brick and firebomb hurled at them. In an hour of unbridled vandalism at 2am on 15 July, Assistant Com­ missioner Powis unleashed continued on page 2 Thatcher's Britain means cop terror and dole queue misery for blacks and youth. Workers revolution the only road out of capitalist despair. Not Green against Ora. but class against class! • I Free Republ- • Nine Republican prisoners have now died on FitzGerald. On 11 July only the brutal interven­ in response to the hunger strike, the Spartacist hunger strike in the H Blocks of Belfast's Maze tion of the Gardai stopped over 10,000 marchers League (SL) has maintained its insistence that prison. And the Westminster butchers continue to from reaching the British emhassy. At least 100 the elementary task facing British revolution­ deny the hunger strikers' five basic demands for were clubbed down and many hospitalised as aries is to fight for the immediate and uncon­ improved prison conditions. Both the Tory baton-wielding cops cleared the streets to pre­ ditional withdrawal of British troops. Virtually government and the Labour lackeys of Her Maj­ vent repetition of the February 1972 torching of every other tendency -- historically capitu­ esty's Loyal Opposition see no road out of the the Dublin embassy after the British a-rmy's lating to the social democracy at home and to Bloody Sunday massacre of thirteen civilians in the Republicans in Ireland -- seeks to restrict Derry. The Times (31 July) captured the mood: slogans on demonstrations to support for the No to forced reunification! 'The black flags are flying in Dublin'. prisoners' five demands. Thus they fall in line For an Irish workers republic in a Even if, as is now being mooted, the Repub­ with the Republicans' attempt to appeal to lib­ licans call off the fast to the death in favour eral 'humanitarian' sentiments and pressure socialist federation of the British Isles! of another tactic, this will not defuse the imperialism into negotiations. highly charged situation brought to a head by Communists understand that the imperialist military presence in Ireland in any form can impasse -- only more of the attrition that cul­ the hunger strike. The frustration of the minates centuries of oppression and bloodshed. British ruling class with the intractable situ­ only reinforce the oppression of the Catholic Since 1 March, when the current hunger ation in the North is exemplified by the sharp minority and act as an obstacle to proletarian strike campaign began, a wave of outrage against increase in talk even among right-wing Labour class mobilisation. But unlike much of the murderous British imperialism has swept across leaders of an end to Tory/Labour bipartisanship. British left, we foster no illusions that a Ireland. According to official figures released Much of the debate at the upcoming Labour Party troop withdrawal in and of itself will resolve on 6 August, 51 people -- almost half of them conference promises to centre around the Irish the national question in Ireland or end the nat­ cops and soldiers -- have died in 'terrorist question, with over fifty resolutions submitted ional oppression of the Northern Catholic minor­ attacks' in the North. Over 1000 have been in­ for discussion. But whether it be 'federal coun­ ity. In attacking ex-prime minister James jured in a five-month period marked by 1000 cils', or Tony Benn's call to replace British Callaghan's call in the Commons for the estab­ demonstrations, 1700 arrests and the firing of imperialist troops with Unit-ed Nations imper­ lishment of a 'broadly independent state' in the 7000 plastic bullets by the army. Just the day ialist troops, or the current Labour Party idi­ North, the fake-Trotskyist International Marxist before the figures appeared a new wave of ex­ ocy of an Ulster referendum on the subject of a Group (IMG) declares that the Orange state, plosions signalled the possibility of a new 'united Ireland', -class-conscious militants must ' ... has maintained its existence because Republican bombing campaign. intransigently oppose all the 'liberal' imper­ ultimately the British have safeguarded that In the South an upsurge of anti-British, ialist schemes. Free the Republican prisoners! existence by military might. If Britain was nationalist feeling has confronted the fragile, Troops out now! nd longer prepared to do so, the state would incoming Fine Gael/Labour coalition of Dr Garret Throughout the mobilisations in Britain continued on page 6 cognise, much less prevent, the sharp rise in So concerned were the reformists to maintain The 'troubles'. racialist murders .... their constitutional respectability that when (Continued from page 1) • • 'And as the flames ignited on Toxteth's Upper the Tory press latched on to the timid propa­ Parliament Street spread from slum to slum his shock troops upon the black inhabitants of gan~a.of the Labour Party's tame left house op­ as the number of skulls cracked by police ' b~ixton's Railton Road in an orgy of racist POSl.t10n, the Militant group, which simply put truncheons climbed, as the number of arrests terror. Claiming the existence of a mysterious forward the elementary demand for the dropping skyrocketed to the pOint where the government 'pe7rol bomb factory' as the pretext for their of charges against those arrested by the police was compelled to improvise concentration the Labourites, headed by erstwhile 'left' EriC' searc~ and destroy rampage, they tore apart one camps, it was clear that the mythologised residence after another in the early morning Heffer, leapt into the forefront to condemn the Britain of the orderly bus queue and hours. While Tory 'golden wonder boy' Michael propaganda. But the Militant propaganda was mild "unarmed" bobby was a thing of the past.' ~eseltine was busying himself with his 'inquiry' indeed. Centring as it did around the absurd , . .. The labour movement must act now -- to 1nto the problems of inner city Liverpool, Chief reformist demand for 'community control' of the demand the dropping of charges against all Constable Kenneth Oxford gave his men the nod to police, it was in fact but an extension of the those arrested in the massive police dragnet; launch a campaign of motorised terror. On Labour leaders' Dixon of Dock Green fair-play that the cop invasions of the ghettos stop; Monday, 27 July, Paul Conroy was rammed against mentality. that the new repressive measures and weaponry a wall by a hit-and-run police vehicle, to be be withdrawn. ' While the Labour leaders made much of their left with a broken back. The following day, a 'Britain is coming apart at the seams', we campaign to force various Tory ministers to police van mounted a grass verge at high speed said, in describing the sense of social polar­ admit the obvious fact that unemployment was aiming for a group of youths walking along the isation and the SOCial decomposition which is part of the root cause of the conflict, their footpath. They hit David Hoore, unemployed, aged economic strate~v of caoitalist reflation is a the corollary of Britain's economic decay. That 22, crippled since childhood. Murdered by the platform of no hope to the chronically unem­ the fury and anger is expressed in directionless cops. The van dragged his crumpled body for 25 ployed of the cities. With cities like Coventry, and often anti-social street outbursts instead yards -- and sped on. Oxford warned the public ten years ago the industrial boom town of full of organised class struggle is the crime of the to stay off the streets or face the conse­ employment now rapidly on the road to becoming working-class misleaders. The crisis of leader­ quences: 'we are not conducting a Roman carni­ another ghost town of deserted factories and ship which debilitates the labour movement is val'. We demand: Jail the killer cops~ empty shops, only senile social democracy could symbolised by the fate of BL's huge Rover If Britain's police forces lack the weaponry imagine that the long term decay of the British of their continental or North American counter­ Solihull SDI operation, about to become yet an­ economy could be halted by a little bit of cap­ parts, they clearly have the will to make up for other in the seemingly endless series of plant italist reflation. The truth is that British it with sheer brutality. A local white doctor Closures. Self-proclaimed revolutionaries in the capitalism is down the drain. And just about who attended some of the victims of James leadership made no attempt to mobilise serious everyone knows it! When Chancellor Howe blurted Anderton's r1an<:hester constabulary expressed his struggle, but offer Bennism as an answer to out some nonsense about the recession being horror: 'In the pa.3t week I have seen and wi t­ everything. over, everyone from the Labour front bench to nessed injuries that I never expected to see in Meanwhile the fabcists push themselves to the the CBI and other Tory ministers joined eagerly England.' Other residents described scenes of fore, capitalising on the passivity of the to pOint out how foolish this was.