Hostile For most of those eight years the British working class have remained indifferent or hostile to that liberation struggle, fed as they have been by a gutter press and a Labour leadership which has brutalised the truth as savagely as the Army ha brutalised tens of thousands of working class Irish people. But on the weekend of 17-18 September, fifty trade unionists and Labour Party members went for themThey went as members of the National Labour Movement Delegation to Ireland, which had been organised by the Troops Out Movement. In visiting Crossmaglen and Belfast, they met representatives of a number of Republican and nationalist organisations in an effort to hammer out a policy which the British labour movement could adopt to aid the Irish people in their struggle for self-determination While the nature of the agenda did not allow delegates to return with a complete picture of what was happening in Ireland - the delegation supporters of the Communist Partv Ireland and the Official Republican movement, wallete delegates them selves boycotted all Loyalist groups - the experience of the venture will at least aid me celerates to counteract much or te propaganda WIICH spews out.
THE MYTH of the troops as a peacekeeping force was literally shot to pieces when the members of the delegation visited a social club in Catholic dominated their standing army of 15,000 guns!
nere are Inose wno say troops out now would pose problems. The only problem is one of mathematics - how to get 15,000 soldiers on one ferry.
PAT ARROWSMITH, sponsor who met leaders women's peace movement: "We asked them about the troops, and they said it will take them a year to work out any policies. They seemed sincere, but not very relevant... all in all, it was a bit wishy-washy.' MIKE KNOWLES, Hackney Trades Council, for the Delegation: What the British Labour Movement needs is a dose of truth about itself. What 1 am doing is making an historic apology to the Irish people for years of criminal neglect by the British PHIL FLYNN, Deputy General Secretary, Local Government and Public Employees Union: vicious circle. The only way to break it is by unned working class action. But that cannot be built while one