was first pioneered against of the six occupied British state has done more to THE MOST remarkable aspect of the miners' 12 month struggle was the way it demonstrated in practice the sort of alliance of the exploited and oppressed which the British working class must forge in order to wage any serious struggle against the British bourgeoisie.
munities, the Greenham women, the left wing of the Labour Party and trade unions, the gay support movement, the black support movement and so on. Against them were the bulk of the official leadership of the labour movement, alongside the parties of the capitalist However, the miners, trom the first davs of then strike, had another ally.which some British socialists -Sinn rein in Ireland. In an interview with this paper, Joe Austin. chairperson of Belfast Sinn Fein, explained their position:
We give complete and unequivocal support to the miners nationally population in the North of Illa y unactstand all of the ins and but they scc miners getting battered by the on TV and they view any BULLE every one that 1s involved in struggle as a comrade.' This position of Sinn Fein and its general objective of linking up with the left wing of the British movement does nave fundamental significance for the class struggle • Because posed is the possibility of all between the British working class and With the miners were the women in the mining comthe people of against the British ruling And that really is a powerful combination of forces.
fact the entire, elaborate system of censorSILO propaganda repressive laws like the Prevention Terrorism Act exists precisely in order to prevent such an alliance coming into being.
Just the miners' has brought into existence class struggie or a kind not seen since the "20s in this the Irish coully. so loo. struggle - which has been a qualitatively higher level than anything in Britain — has brought into existence an even more politically advanced mass leadership in the form of the Adams leadership of And just as the struggl racy and democratic rights like trade union rights has been a central concern of the "Scargillite' left Sinn rein has won the leadership of the most militant sections ot the nationalist population of Ireland on The pass ors unwaverie commitment struggle for the most elementary democratic right of all - the right to the national independence of Ireland from As Gerry Adams put it in his speech to the 1984 Sinn Fein Ard Fheis: 'We will continue to campaign tor the restoration of Irish democracy and to articutate desire people for freedom independence, regardless of Dublin smears or British VO CECO geographic ally, historically culturally is one nation. Weas people have the right UlIC to be free, and in that freedom the divided sections of our people will find the will unite, regardless religious affiliations.
In the course of that struggle for Irish freedom the Adams leadership of Sinn Fein has emerged as a force which recognises that only the Irish working class has an _carrying that interest in struggle through the end, and that in order to do so it will nave to champion all struggles against opSCOS OIL above all that of women. So too, it will have to use all possible avenues of struggle - the military campaign, , elections, trade union work and mass campaigning What is now emerging in the British state is the possibility of an alliance of truly historic significance between the revolutionary nationalist Sinn Fein leadership the struggle forces emerging in the British labour movement. Such an alliance is a step on the road to welding allanct LIle Irish people and the British working class Such has not been brought into existence since the days of Chartism when the second national charter petition o 1842 incorporated the demand for freedom for Ireland into the demands the mass British working class movement.
Sinn Fein's total support for the miners enormously contributes creating a mass working current which con sciously seeks to recreate Ballance belweel land the British working class on the only basis possible • namely the British working class itself championing the Irish struggle against British rule in Ireland.
10 Socialist Action 15 March 1985 IN 1984, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign (NSC)