The Anti-Internment League conference last Saturday on "The British Labour Movement and the British Army in Ireland' could not have been more timely. One of its original aims had been to explain the way in which a major wave of repression in Britain was being prepared in Ireland. The fact that the repression was already under way before the conference brought a sharpness and immediacy to its discussions. Nearly 300 delegites and observers from all over England, Scotland and Wales attended. They came from AlL branches, Irish organisations, Student Unions and Socialist Societies, Trade Union branches and Trades Councils. The trade union representation indicated the growing awareness within the organised working class that the issue of the Irish struggle could not be ignored in any light against the repression in Britain. Delegates and observers, came from branches of the ASTMS, AUEW. ATTI, EEPTU, T&GWU, Boilermakers Society, AUEW (TASS), UCATT, NUT, NGA, NUJ and Artists Union, from Oxford, Westminster, and Brighton Trades Couccils, and also from 'Big Flame', Rank and File, and the Claimants and Unemployed Workers Union. A message of support from South Shields Trades Council was read out: this trades council has already launched a local campaign against Army recruitment, linking it to the issue of local unemployment. Thore was also a message from Benny Bunsee, one of the leaders of the militant black workers in the Manstield Hosiery Mills strike.
In the opening session Gery Lawless spoke on the political background to the current crisis in the North of Ireland, and the impending failure of the White Paper. There were also speakers from the Belfast Ten Defence Committee, and the Coventry Prisoners Defence Above (left to righr): Capt, James Kelly, Gery Lawless, Jack Droney, Rock Tansey and Brim Rose-Smih. Committee. In the second session Captain James Kelly, a former member of Free State Army Intelligence, explained the way in which the tboories of Brigadier Kitson were being implemented in the North of Ireland. Rock Tansey und Brian Rose-Smith of the Haidane Society spoke on the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill, and Jack Dromey of the National Council for Civil Liberties gave examples of the repression, and the way in which the facts were being covered up in the press. In the evening Jonathan Rosenhead, Hilary Rose and Tim Shallice from the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science spoke on "The Technology of Repression, and Bob Purdie, AlL Organiser, led off a discussion on the way in which the Irish question could be taken up inside the labour movement. The conclusions drawn from the conference could be summed up by a statement distributed there by the All *This wave of repression is caused by the failure of the White Paper. The British Governent has not been able to erase the sectarian pasts of the Unionist Party, or to stabilise the sit uation without the collaboration of higots like Faulkner, The catbolic minority has continued to resist such a British settlement. British imperialism must crush them, before their inshility to solve the Irish Problem' is exposed, But the Irish Problem' is in reality Ireland's British
As the trade union leaders talk, the State prepares to make war on the picket lines. The flying picket is a real threat to the employers and the Government. As they learnt in the miners strike, the flying picket wins strikes, wins over the active solidarity of other workers, and raises the participation of the rank and file in strikes to a dangerously high level. Its use in the fight against Phase 2 could have seriously upset the calculations of both Government and TUC. The fact that the flying picket can be used to outflank the trade union bureaucracy in this way is a weighty consideration with the Government as they plan ahead to meet the storms of Phase 3.
New Precedents The Shrewsbury case is an attempt to create new legal precedents against picketing This was one of the aims of the Industrial Relations Act: But following the massive campaign against the Act, and the jasling of the live dockers, the industrial Relations Act has become so unpopular with the working class that its use must await another day. The Act and of 1972 now has a firm reputation in the working class of being a 'political' plece of legistation •reinforce this attitude. The working class movement has a long memory. It remembers 1926 and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. But unfortunately it has forgotten the circumstances surrounding the legislation of 1875 under which the Shrewsbury 24 face conspiracy charges. The 1875 laws were a reprisi for rights won by the unions in 1874. Bur they are lable to be regarded by the working class as part of normal "criminal' law. This distinction between a 'political" law and a "criminal" law passed in obscure and forgotten circumstances, offers the Government great advantages. Even though this distinction lacks a are concerned (the Industrial Relations Act is designed to make many trade union activities into criminal offences), the working class is not yet in permanent activity and agitation over This passivity has been encouraged by the trade union bureaucracy. The leadership of the construction union, UCATT, led the way by withdrawing their previous offer of financial aid lor the delence Now lbe Tue-in a leller to Flint Trades Council, have done their best to They refer to cases under the 1875 Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act against workers on picket duty, *who have in the view of the police officers on the spot committed acts outside the definition of peaceful picketing. Trades Councils should not encourage delegutes or affiliated branches to take part in any industrial action in support of workers before the Court on charges arising from the Act unless requested to do so by the NECs of the Unions concerned."
Law of 1361 The tactic of adapting the wellestablished criminal law is also being used elsewhere. In the St. Thomas's Hospital site case in London, some pickets have been charged under a law of 1361.
Our task is to make it clear to the ruling class that any worker jailed for picketing, whether under criminal" or "political law, will be sup ported by a repeat of the action taken over the Pentonville 5. Mass industrial struggle is the best means of defence against class law. There must be no distinction drawn, for the purposes of the class struggle between 1875 or 1972 between Shrewsbury or Pentonville. But whoever put it on the books in the first place, the law operates against the working class in struggle. Take the charge of conspiracy. This is a traditional makeweight. Thousands of people have pleaded guilty to charges they know to be false because the police slapped on the additional charge of conspiracy - easy to "prove, and carrying an unlimited sentence. The police offer to drop it in return for an admission to the main charge or charges. This is a piece of institutionalised intimidation, used quite arbitrarity by the police when they want to ger a conviction, and also used against the 24. Neither is the judiciary above the class strupale. In last year's miners" strike, for example, pickets found themselves facing scab lorry drivers driv ing coal at 50 mph through the line with police connivance (one miner was killed in this way). When a complaint was made to the Director of Public Prosecutions about one lorry driver wielding an iron bar Che appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror), the response was that: It would be necessary to prove that the truck driver carried the iron bar with the inten
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