Workers Solidarity Movement

As Gardaí go door to door in central Dublin trying to intimidate any residents who might be tempted to protest against the visit of the British queen, their colleagues in Britain have mounted raids on social centers and squats across London. Five social centers were raided this morning in London and over 60 anarchists have been banned from the centre of the London on the day of the wedding of Liz's parasitic offspring. Cops used battering rams to raid 3 further houses in Hove.

Approximately 300 people attended a meeting in the Gresham Hotel in early April which “endorsed the formation of a campaign, called "Enough!" to resist the IMF EU deal and to demand a referendum.”[i] At first thought it seems to be a campaign which should be enthusiastically supported by anarchists and libertarians.  After all we’re always going on about grassroots democracy and about involving people in decisions about things that affect them. And didn’t the people of Iceland have not one but two referenda on their ‘bailout’ in the last 13 months?  If they can have two, why shouldn’t we have at least one!

Last weeks killing of PSNI officer Ronan Kerr combined with the massive public backlash expressed on various media outlets and rallies has served to strengthen the status-quo and the acceptability of the PSNI. In doing so providing a hostile environment for radical politics to operate in and ‘legitimacy’ to an intensification in intimidation and repression of republicans, their families and dissenters who dares to question the status-quo. Some media commentators suggesting that the booby trap car bomb will do for the PSNI what Bloody Sunday massacre did for the Provisional IRA.

An editorial in Thursday's Irish Times titled "Loose talk or malice?" accepted the interpretation that the Gardai recorded on the Corrib video were simply making a private joke about rape. The editorial found that unacceptable but less serious then previous "corrupt and illegal actions by a small number of its members." The attitude of the Irish Times that all that is at issue is some off colour joking has been reflected by other commentators. Some like Kevin Myers can be dismissed as pro-Shell loons but others who have taken this line seem genuine and therefore must not have given much thought to the context these remarks were made in. The context being both the circumstances these particular women found themselves in (in the power of the Garda concerned) and the general pattern of Garda repression of protest around the Corrib project.

Despite the rest of us struggling to pay off the bills, poverty wages and coping with increased living costs or being flung on the dole the so-called great and good in our society the wealthiest have never had it so good. Top of the list in the wee north is Eddie Haughey who has a combined wealth of 340 million.

This week Belfast City Council approved a homecoming parade for the Royal Irish Regiment and Irish Guards from Afghanistan. The motion was backed by the DUP, UUP and Alliance parties, but opposed by the SDLP and Sinn Fein. The final vote was 26 to 20. Smaller parades will also take place in Lisburn and Enniskillen.

Garda in Mayo took revenge for the publication of the Corrib cops rape threat video yesterday by attacking Shell to Sea campaigners during another protest near the site where the women were arrested.  Alongside this there are clear indications of a dirty tricks campaign being waged by the Garda Press Office. The fact that Garda from the same division felt confident attacking the friends of the women only hours after the so called investigation had been announced by the Garda Press office demonstrates exactly how serious they expected such an investigation to be.  These actions confirm that the  rape threat as an interrogation method discussion captured on the video is not simply an issue of the Garda directly involved on the video but indicative of the brutal nature of policing in the area where individual Garda continue to expect to have a free hand in attacking campaigners.

When “dissident” republicans killed policeman Ronan Kerr with a booby-trap car bomb on Saturday, they were pursuing what they believed was a strategy that would eventually lead to the defeat of British imperialism in Ireland, firstly by destroying the policy of normalisation, "ulsterisation" and the co-option of  republicans into the political system, and ultimately in breaking the will of the British ruling class to maintain their hold in Ireland.

Last Saturday, 26 March saw up to half a million take part in a TUC organised anti-cuts protest in London.  In the aftermath of the protest there has been much controversy about the 700 strong black bloc that broke away from the protest to throw paint at and break the windows of banks, luxury car dealers and the 4,000 a night Ritz hotel in Central London.  Workers Solidarity's Australian correspondent Sean Matthews argues here that a few broken windows was not violence but a legitimate display of class anger and that if anything this was a welcome distraction from the speech of the Labour leader Ed Miliband whose party initiated and imposed cuts and privatisation of public services over the last decade.

Over 10 years on from the signing on the Good Friday Agreement and working-class communities in the North have failed to reap the rewards from the ‘peace dividend’ according to a new study conducted by the assembly’s Research and Library Service. The report which examined deprivation and social disadvantage since the 1998 agreement found that the proportion of people claiming benefits and unable to heat their homes had ‘increased’, poverty had remained ‘broadly unchanged’ and unemployment levels had began to ‘rise’.