Birmingham bomb blasts of November 21 is still coming in, the political toll is also mounting. Out of the vast welter of misreporting, half truths, and lies coming from the British news media, two important steps are being taken that indicate the immediate use to which the bourgeoisie is putting this affair. First, what Home Secretary Jenkins is proposing is not just a special regulation for some particular time. Rather, he is seeking new laws to rush through a hysterical House of Commons- laws increasing police powers to detain people without charges. Banning the IRA in Britain, deportation of Irish found guilty of offenses in Britain, and even the general issuing of identity cards are being discussed as well. In addition, the reaction of sections of the working class in and around the Birmingham area and the general attitude of anti-Irish-republican chauvinism developing in the country create the most perfect of covers for maintaining and intensifying the desperate repressive policy of British imperialism in the North of Ireland. It also gives a further impetus to the crystallization in Britain of a social base for reaction within the working class (which is something Powell, the fascist National Front, and the ultraright Ulster Loyalists have been consistently working for). After two or three years of ongoing battle between the classes on nearly every front, the ruling class is now trying to recompose unity around itself and its policy, at least on the Irish issue. While the Irish issue occupies the center of the stage, the ruling class uses this unity to push through an imposing list of mesures designed to strengthen the state. British policy in the North of Ireland has passed through many twists and turns, as has been described in previous articles in INPRECOR. After the Loyalist general strike, British imperialism had no choice but to return to the resurrection of Stormont and re-creation of the sectatian special police, the B Specials; in fact, the total reconstruction of the entire sectarian Orange statelet. To create the conditions for an eventual British troop withdrawal and an "Ulsterization" of the struggle against the Republicans in the North, it was necessary to step up the level of direct repression of the beleaguered minority population. This has been met by a massive wave of resistance, which included the burning down of internment camps by Republican prisoners. British imperialism was becoming increasingly desperate to smash this level of resistance in time for the Constitutional Assembly called for the spring.
BOMB BLAST It was these conditions that began to create real problems for the conduct of imperialism's policy also in Britain itself, particularly within the Labour party. "Left" Members of Parliament found it increasingly difficult to defend the more and more obvious role of British troops. Some, like Joan Maynard, spoke at a recent Troops Out demonstration in London that was supported by various sections of the revolutionary left, And this opening was sufficient to begin once again to raise the issue of immediate troop withdrawal in a small but important way within the working class. Such moves were of tremendous importance to the ruling class, which needed both to defend its Irish policy and to prevent the tacit class bloc it had built around the Irish issue from being eroded. Urgent mesures were necessary to prevent the unity of the left Social Democrats and those active on the Irish issue. Secfions of the right waiting on the wings of the British social and political crisis had even greater fish to fry on the Irish question. Powell, standing in Northern Ireland in the latest Parliamentary elections, was busily attempting to cobble together a reactionary base within the working class over the heads of the workers' traditional leaders on the issues of Ireland and racism. As long ago as October 3 the Red Weekly, paper of the International Marxist Group (IMG), British section of the Fourth International, had this to say: "For Powell has every intention of using his success in the six counties to split up, disorganise, and defeat the British Working Class... taking the first step forward towards using the Irish as a political war-cry in the same way that he has already used black immigrants in this country. Unfortunately, sentiment for this already exists inside the British Working Class.... " Powell's drive carried in its wake the National Front and the Northern Irish loyalist organizations. These groups attempt to use Powell's Bonapartist initiative in the bourgeois arena to organizationally consolidate a base within the working class. All these elements have come together around the Birmingham bomb blasts. First reports from Birmingham (part of the area which gave Powell support in the past) indicate that some partial strikes against the IRA calling for reintroduction of the death penalty for IRA "terrorists" have taken place. Workers at big car plants like the one at Longbridge walked off the job for two or three hours and held impromptu anti-Irish demonstrations. In some other factories pro-Republicans have been beaten up. The National Front has issued a call for a one-day cont'd. on pg.31