certain of retaining the Labour vote. For this reason they have smiled on the rent rebels who are fighting the Tory GLC. And what with elections on the way, they are avoiding a confrontation with squatters that will expose their I2TUTC10 supply adequate housing in the borough itself.
The only time the Council tried to force the squatters out was when they turned off the electricity The mothers at Arbour House Traded by going down to the tow c the Hous papers like to keep the po ing tha squatters are long-haired junky freaks, not working-class families who are desperate for somewhere to live.
One of these families is Danny and Carol McNally and their five children. Danny is a quiet-spoken Scot, with an accent so thick it's hard for a Londoner to understand for rent-arrears, and the children were taken into care the same day. Danny and Carol moved into Carol's Mother's, and had to stay there for the next two years without their kids.
The McNallies are old hands at squatting— they had already spent the best part of a year squatting at Ilford before they came to Arbour House. Carol doesn't worry about the insecurity of this kind of existence.
She's immune to it', Danny told the Black Dwarf reporter.
Anyway,' said Carol, 'It's better than having the kids in care They had, of course, been offered Welfaremeaning the revolting inhumane hostels for the bomeless run by the council at places like Beechcroft Buildings and Rayne Street Lodge.
would rather have to get rid of the children again", said Carol firmly. *Besides, the Welfare told us that it might be 10 years before they moved us into a proper place As all the official channels seemed to lead to a dead end, squatting seemed a logical choice. But now the legal processes against the McNallies are nearing their conclusion. What would she do ion was impossible-so she decided to squat. Ironically what finally decided her was the advice of a friendly policeman.
She has taken over a nice flat at the top of Arbour House, where her baby is happy and healthy. She has no doubts about what she's done.
It's no good going up there and accepting their rules and regulations, she said. "If they're going to pay any attention, you've got to make your angry aboat the say things have in a selfure state, and 1 know omething about mo", she says. s in Arbour House, she of the 62 empty fat ppen. Last weck a ses famin moved in mitbout anvone cien know ing about it— they just appeared overnight. But the Council, in their typical bloody-minded way, have done their best to smash up all the remaining flats so as to make them uninhabitablemuch for improvements!
The future of the Arbour House squatters is uncertain. A Court Order against them will come into effect in a month or so, and although it is only directed against 3 of the families, the up for everybody Marie is determined:
TIl fight for my rights' she said. TIl barricade myself in and fight to the end'. -she will need help.
The CCHS are optimistic about the outcome of this confrontation. But they do not see squatting as the answer to homelessness. Tony Mahony said that he thought that squatting was just a tactic to be used or discarded as appropriate, so long as the families themselves were fully protected For the families themselves squatting is not a tactic. There is a prescient doomed vision ir Mane s saying that sne will ngnt to me ena. The original squats were led by militants who thought that they could detonate a mass movement of direct working class action by their example. In contrast the reality of squatting has been that few families that have taken the risk, despite the appalling alternative. Now isolated, and by a quirk of fate, still in possession the Arbour Square squatters will be turfed ou whenever ine and the council finally decide- -despite the fact that they have every right to be there. Black Dwarf reporter Three times John McKeague was tried for causing the explosions which contributed to uneating O'Neill from the Premiership last year.
against overwhelming evidence, clined to convict him and a number of members of the extreme /ster Volunteer Force have been with the rest of the organization turned Queen's Evidence and earned himself 12 years on his own plea of guilty while his former comcades were being acquitted.
Although MeKeague's popularity in Belfast is not so extensive as it once was, he and his comrades are sufficiently within the loyalist tradition for life to be extremely hazardous for any "disloyal' jurymen, who are anyway fairly thin on the ground. As if to make sure of things, a bomb exploded in court midway through the second trial. So while British justice reaps the harvest it has sown, the present series of trials are having remarkably little effect upon the local explosionThis year there has been an average of one explosion every four days. With two tinder-dry bye-elections in the near future, the Orangemen may well be going for a chain-reaction as their final fling.
IRISH LABOUR PARTY IN THE DOLDRUMS The last months have been an unmitigated disaster for the 26 county Irish Labour Party's. At the beginning of March a series of unfortunate events culminated in a catastrophe: in the midst or ar almost unparalleled wave of industrial militancy, in an urban working-class constituency with severe housing and ployment problems the Labour Party lost one of its 18 parliamentary seats to the governing Fianna Fail party.
The beaten Labour candidate blamed a split socialist vote for his defeat: the widow of the incumbent Deputy had felt personally slighted at the party's choice of candidate and had interNorth, the Irish ruling class is sull toeing ine British line. (Photo Utd. Irishman)
vened herself as an independent, with powerful secondary support from Fanna rail. But the real basis of the defeat was political.
A year ago it appeared that nothing could prevent the Irish Labour Party from at least forcing Fianna Fail to form a minority government. Apart from Sinn Féin, the political party of militant Republicanism they had benefitted more from the events in the north than any the other southern parties: indeed, with the petrified face of the southern political universe at last appearing to crack, it seemed that Labour could be the possible gainers. Its programme embodied that looked to be a new popular radicalism. Its organization attracting important members of the inteleenta and for the first - LITTIC commanded the undivided loyalty of the Trade Unions. Yet it failed: in last June's election its urban victories were wiped out. Its rural defeats expected to gain nine more seats, its number of representatives remanted the same the summer crisis it could do no better than to call for direct rule of the north by Westminster. In the autumn its attempts to form an all-trish Labour Party failed, and the Northern Ireland La Doll party ended up joining Transport House.
To some extent Labour caught a chill from the British Labour Party -To some extent i sunered roma 'Ted scare during the exceedingly dirty elections. But above all, its decline stemmed from being consistently politically outflanked. Its support for British Interventon made I suspect on te issue o national integrity. absence of popular campaigns meant that its activity became chiefly identified with principled but remote stands on issues like the Springbok tour and curbs on the freedom of the national television network. housing, employment, wages, emigration and the border the ILP vacillated between timidity and - opportunism Its line does not carry either as far as the governing self-proclaimed 'Republicans'; or their extra-parliamentary opponents in Sinn Féin. Those who last year proclaimed the New Republic' are this year less confident about its prospects.