WOMEN'S conference this year looks set to put seeking to preserve British economic, built up since the 32-county hunger and the student movement were stressed. ly look to the hard left for support. pool and elsewhere. It against strip-searching.
spiracy charges. strip-searching in Ireland and Britain.
Labour Party and student movement. The Labour Committee on Ireland annual conference met in London over the weekend 26-27 April. Debates centred on the response of the LCI to the new situation created by the The view adopted by the conference was that: 'The LCI is totally opposed to the Hillsborough military and social interests in Ireland through consolidating partition and escalating repression, the accord further delays a solution in Ireland which can only be found through unconditional military and political withdrawal of Britain.' The conterence agreed on a series of stens to exo ain it. position on the Accord in the context of continuing to develop its campaign against repression in LCI members rejected the view that the Accord had radically reversed the relationship of forces paign and the dialogue between Sinn Fein and sections of the British labour movement. They also rejected proposals that the LCI should now con work defensively against the Accord and adapt its magazine Labour and Ireland to work exclusively with forces in the labour moveInstead conference recognised that the Accord was an attempt to stop the growth of Sinn Fein in Ireland and the growing pro-withdrawal sentiment in the British labour movement. But it has not suc. ceeded. The decision of the National Union of Students conference for the first time to call for the debate on Ireland opening up in unions like the NUR; and the fact that even a section of the Parliamentary Labour Party is prepared to defy all show the true situation. The Anglo-Irish Accords is a dangerous attempt to defeat the anti-imperialist struggle in poncing uni 6-county statelet. It aims to de-rail the movement for Irish self-determination. But it is wrong to conThe LCI will therefore continue to look for every possible opening to link up with broader forces in opposing British rule in Ireland and determination and immediate British withdrawal. The new opportunities of working with the Labour Party black section, the Campaign Group of MPs The proposals that the LCI should affiliate to the Labour Left Co-ordination was defeated after the meeting was addressed by LLC secretary Davy Jones, who explained that there would be no progress on any left policies in the party between now and the general election and that the LCI could onswung the uncommitted against affiliation and ensured that proposals to affiliate whilst preserving the LCI's autonomy were defeated. The LCI will Labour Left CoThe annual meeting also voted to oppose the witch-hunt and expulsions in Birmingham, Liveradopted an emergency resolution condemning the US bombing of Libya and the government's collaboration with it. Conference heard a series of guest speakers including the feminist writer Neil McCafferty and Francie Molloy of Sinn Fein, who was given a 'standing speaking for Labour's front bench, tried to justify their support for Thatcher's Anglo-Irish Accord. For the first time there was an official delegate, Dennis Murphy, from the National Executive Committee of the NUM at the Conference heard speakers on the campaigns speaker from Irish Prisoners Appeal explained the barbaric conditions in which the six men and two women are be- . ing held on remand in Brixton prison, one charged with the Brighton bombing and the rest on conThe speaker reported that the two women were being subjected to strip-searches three or four times a day. Given the policy of the Labour Party and TUC against strip-searches, a major task is to mobilise activity on the basis of that policy against Overall the conference maintained the LCI on its course of taking the fight for British withdrawal from Ireland deeper into the trade unions, the