Workers Press has now added its voice to the chorus of slanders from the reactionary, capitalist press against the International Marxist Group. In its issues of 25 and 27 August, editor Alex Mitchell goes well beyond the bounds of polemic, and makes statements which amount to an accusation that I.M.G. militants are in the service of the police.
Since Workers Press is so intent on distorting the facts in order to try and gain petty sectarian advantages. w will once again spell out the central points concerning tne actions or 1.m. u. munant very Lawiess. 1. Upon receiving a statement from the Irish Republi can Press Bureau on Sunday afternoon accepting responsibility for the bombings, and after satistying himself of the genuineness of this statement, Gery Lawless contacted the police for the sole purpose of obtaining information - of verifying whether or not bombing had actually occurred; no information whatsoever was communicated to une ponce on that occasion 2. Comrade Lawless went to Scotland Yard on Monday evening, accompanied by his solicitor, after having been requested to do so by the police; that was the first occasion on which comrade Lawless gave any information whatsoever to the police, and his statement told them nothing that they could not have found out by reading that morning's newspaper. As far as the International Marxist Group is concerned, we recognise only too clearly the power of the state apparatus and the police in capitalist society. If comrade Lawless had engaged in false 'heroics", and rejected Habershon's request, he would have been subject to forcible detainment and interrogation, under circumstances much more favourable to the police. For revolutionaries the political principle invoived in relations with the police is simple: at no time and in no way can we support the actions of the police, nor can we attempt to use the police as a means of dealing with disputes within the working class movement. At no time have any actions of comrade Lawless infringed that principle, and we are therefore satisfied that nothing done by comrade Lawless has in any way compromised his position as a revolutionary mutant As une statement puousnca cisewnere i us issue shows, that view is shared by the National Organiser of the Republican Movement in Britain. The Socialist Labour League's concern with the actions of comrade Lawless does not stem from some high regard for socialist principles. It simply serves them as an excuse for breaking solidarity with the International Marxist Group just as it is in the greatest danger of comme under anack rom une capilaust sualt was mde perfectly clear in a letter to the I.M.G. from Gerry Healy, National Secretary of the S.L.L. on Sunday, 26 August, rejecting the I.M.G.'s proposal for a joint meeting with the S.L.L. and the International Socialists, to discuss a joint defence against the witchhunt.
At the present time the main concern of the S.L. L. is to run awav from anvthing that might connect it with the Irish liberation struggle. The statement of the Socialist Labour League on the bombing makes no mention of solidarity with the Irish struggle and 'condemns the bombers whoever they are' (our emphasis). In other words, even if the Provisional I.R.A. is responsible for Sunday's bombings, they are unconditionally 'condemned" by the S.L.L. This certainly places the S.L.L. in rather mixed company. The excuse they give for this position is that: Their [the bombers] activities only retard the development of the political and industrial campaign to force the hated Heath Government out of office. That should be a clear enough warning to the Republi can movement. The S.L. L. believes that the central task is to kick out the Tories and return Labour ti power on a socialist programme. The I.R.A. may feel that their central task is to defeat British imperialism in Ireland, but they will have to toe the line laid down by the S.L.L. The Socialist Labour League does not brook anv nonsense about the irish republican move ment having the right to set their own objectives and determine their own methods of struggle. As a result the S.L.L. judges actions which spread the war into the imperialist homeland not on the basis of their effectiveness in advancing the Irish struggle, but in terms of their effect on the prejudices of British workers.
The S.L. L. has never taken seriously the need to support the fight for national liberation in Ireland. It has been conspicuously absent from the demonstra tions, meetings and campaigns against internment and the whole series of repressive measures carried out by British imperialism in Ireland. Even after the 'Bloody Sunday' massacre in Derry, it was nowhere to be seen in the mass actions that took place against this act of 'unadulterated murder"
Having prepared neither its members nor its readers for the task of giving real solidarity with the Irish struggle, the S.L.L.'s cardboard castle of revolutionary politics has been blown over by the first good gust of