Solidarity 128, 6 March 2008

AWL’s record on Ireland (and an account of the IWU, ICG and IWG) Part One

This series: The Northern Ireland crisis of 1968-9 and the left Part 11 Part 1: Why Northern Ireland Broke Down Part 2: The Irish Workers' Group, IS and the "Trotskyist Tendency" Part 3: Why Northern Ireland Split on Communal, Not Class, Lines Part 4: When militant sloganeering meant promoting communal war Part 5: When socialists looked to "Catholic Power" ; and Part 5 Section 2 Part 6: SWP (IS) and Northern Ireland in 1968-9: Advocating civil war — until it starts! ; and Section 2 Part 7: The end of the old order in Northern Ireland ; Section 2 ; Section 3 Part 8: IS/SWP conference, September...

Solidarity with Iranian workers

Thursday 6 March was a day of action for Iranian trade unionists facing political repression, jail and torture. The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union organised leafletting at stations in London, Edinburgh, Bristol Cardiff and Liverpool for the jailed Iranian trade unionists Mansoor Ossanloo and Mahmoud Salehi. This action is an important example to trade unionists across Britain of the kind of work needed to put real international pressure on the Iranian government. Mansour Osanloo belongs to the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, a trade union founded three years ago. He...

Teach-in for Abortion Rights

Although this year has seen no defeats for the abortion rights movement, we cannot afford to be complacent. The government has indicated it won’t seek to reduce the time limit at the moment but this is predicated on scientific evidence of foetal viability – basing time limits on this means any medical advances could threaten abortion rights. At the same time, David Cameron has spoken about the need to reduce the time limit, after leaders of all three parties came out for a reduction during the last election. It is not enough that we have suffered no defeats this year – abortion rights...

Ian Paisley: The Orange Godzilla retires

Ian Paisley did not jump out of the position of First Minister of Northern Ireland. He was pushed. Nudged, anyway. He came under strong pressure from the leading circles of the Democratic Unionist Party to go, and go now. It may be for Northern Ireland politics as if President De Gaulle of France had been assassinated early in 1962, at the time of the Evian agreement that gave Algeria independence after an eight year war. It depends on whether the power-sharing arrangement in Northern Ireland, which has gone on very successfully in the last year, really is as "bedded down" as it seemed with...

Stop Israeli atrocity in Gaza!

That Israel should want to stop the clerical-fascist Hamas regime in Gaza lobbing rockets into Israel is understandable and unobjectionable. That is has a right to defend itself will be denied only by those who share Hamas's belief that Israel itself has no right to exist, and the Jewish Israelis no right to be where they are, except as a vulnerable, stateless, disarmed religious minority within an Arab state. In principle, Israel has a right to attack those in Gaza who make feeble and intermittent war from the sky on its citizens. Despite all that, when you look at what is happening in Gaza...

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