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Book Reviews One quarter of SAS killings have been of people with no paramilitary links 300 MIR Big Boy's' Rules: the secret struggle against the IRA By Mark Urban Published by Faber and Faber. 1992. at £/4.99 Reviewed by John Dolan BIG BOYS' RULES covers the years 1976 to 1987 in Northern Ireland. It is based upon research plus 60 interviews with ex-army special forces members. senior ex-security forces members, ex-specialist intelligence workers. solicitors, republican activists. constables. soldiers and members of the public who witnessed gunbattles. The author. Mark Urban. now a BBC2 Veusnight reporter. himself served in the British army in 1979. The book highlights many instances of the ruthless behaviour of the British state. notably the SAS. The standard SAS operation. documented again and again in this book, is of an IRA active service unit (ASt) either going to an arms dump or on an operation which the SAS have been tipped off about (usually from an IRA informer - Irban estimates one in tO IRA members are informers), and being shot without warning For example. three unarmed IRA members on a mission to blow up a post office depot in 1978. with no apparent threat to human life, were killed by five SAs men informed of the attack. who fired a total of 111 shots at them An indication of their behaviour is the fact that one quarter of SAS killings in Vorthern Ireland have been of people with no paramilitary links.
A COMMON LINK between many of the high-ranking RIC and army officers mentioned in the book is their colonial background - Palestine. Kenya, Malaya. Oman. Cyprus and Borneo were all mentioned in describing their earlier military careers.
Their attitude to their role in Northern Ireland is graphically illustrated. The army's yellow card . EY reasonable force guidelines on says that "firearms must only be used as a last resort." Yet Urban intervicwed an ex-intelligence NCO who told him: "I do not object to this capital punishment or without this policy of shooting warning at armed terrorists." Another intelligence officer told him: "I can't see why we can't admit that we are shooting these terrorists." The very title of the book comes from the army saying "big boys' games, big boys rules: any IRA member caught on active service can expect to be shot. Coroners' inquests into state killings are shown to be a white. wash. Soldiers and police often lie to the courts to cover up events and protect their informers. For reasons of army and RIC morale and reputation, convictions are highly unlikely One striking feature about the IRA members killed is their youth. For example the active service unit ambushed (an army colloquialism for a killing) by the SAS in February 1985 were 16. 20 and 22 years of age. Many of the IRA members referred to in this book were in their late teens or carly twentics.
vancy dayre TO MANY WORKERS in Britain. horrified by the methods employed by the IRA. the actions of the army and REC can be excused in dealing with terrorist murderers' But there are many dangers for the labour movement which even at this stage are clearly exposed by British imperialism's actions in Northern Ireland. M15's F-Branch. dealing with counter-subversion. has a definition of subrersive Which includes Liberty (formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties)! The army's (dis )information policy unit was involved in printing fake Ieaflets and posters to discredit the IRA and loyalist paramilitarics in the 1970s. An ex senior army officer's justification to Mark Urban for lying to the media and CI about shootings was to prevent the army from "being held ransom to that mythical commodity tou call truth." The army's bible for operations in Northern Ireland is called Land Operations. Volume Three counter-rerolationary operations. The term counter revolutionary is revealing. Certainly. in the future. the type of actions taken against the IRA documented in this book could be used against
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those fighting for a socialis socicty and the overthrow of capitalism in England. Scotland and Wales. Another incident in the book which will be of interest to CPSA members is when Colin Watlace. who was a government dirty tricks agent in the 19-0s appealel to a civil service board against his dismissal. His appeal was re jected after Ministry of Defence officials had a word with the board.
« course the armed forces aren't superhuman - some of the tales of incompetence in the book are humorous.
like the British army patrol who thought they were witnessing an invasion of Northern Ireland be the Southern army: until they realised they had strayed into the Irish Republic by mistake.
More significantly: the army. RIC and DR were riven with tensions and jealouss in the 10s An ex-army officer says of this time: "Fighting the IRA was about number nine on my list of problems every morning" Intormers for one section were being Poll Tax Rebellion By Danny Burns Published be Mlack International. 1992 .24.95 Reviewed by Martin Cock SINCE MICHAEL HESELTINES March 1991 announcement that the poll tax was to be scrapped. two lies have been spread to belittle the anti-poll tax movement Lie number one — it had nothing to do with non payment started on the dar of abolition. Every pundit and every politician - from the Tory rebels to the Liberal victors in the Ribble Valky by election. to the right-wing Labour leaders who had done so much to attack the anti-pol! tax campaign — popped up to claim their central role in boating the But this lie began do crumble from the day it started Tory and Labour leader alike. fearing their discrediting in the eyes of millions of workers who could see the councils and courts straining under the weight of non-payment. were forced to admit that. in the words of John Major, the poll tax is uncollectable.
And so began lie number two. This was a bit more clever and arrested be another section. And despite all the state surveillance of the IRA. an organisation of approximately 350 active members the IRA had an informer in the REC in 1980. and had tapped the phone calls of senior officers The thinking of the armed for- Clearly in the book. decording to an intelligence officer "it's all a matter of acceptable levels" As well is taking into account the interests of British imperialism itself. there is the fear that killing IRA members creates martyrs and leads to further recruits for them. This strategy is counterposed by those who say: like il sergeant Northern Ireland.
"we've all basically got the same idea of how we could end this. but world opinion wouldn't stand for it."
Another SAs sergeant unwitting- Is shows up the futilies of the IRA's campaign of individual terrorism when compared to what a mass movement could achicre in rendering groups like the SAS PAY lY Millant ]POLL PAY TAX NO POLL TAX TO MANSET LEE LI first appeared in outline in The Observer. 21 March 1991: "If the poll tax is dead in was killed by non-payment. it was left to a raglag army of ordinary people to destroy a bad law: " This was soon refined down to. well Ok. nonpayment did defeat the poll tax but it just happened and would have happened withour the antipoll tax unions or the involvement of groups like Vilitant: helpless: "With its sinister strects and alienated population. Belfast was no place for highly trained special forces operators." Bearing in mind the subject of this book, conclusive proof of events is impossible to give. But Mark I ran scems to have got a lot of information out of his army interviews to give the clearest picture you are likely to read. But all of the tactics and technology used by undercover units described in this book have already been recaled at one time or another. and the book has had 15 alterations made from the orig inal draft due to the intervention of the D-Votice Committee. This is the department which can keep the media from publishing and broadcasting known news storics. most recently used during the Despite this. it chronicles many actions of the state in Vorthern Ireland, has lots of usctul facts and figures. and confirms the ruthless socialists have measures man!
long known the British state has been employing there.
Il is certainly truc to say that non-payment would have happened come what may. mainly duc 1o poverty: But it is ridiculous to argue that the millions of leatlets explaining people's rights. thousands of demonstrations and mectings. didn't play a decisive role in convincing millions of nonpayers that they weren't alone and to hold out right to the end. Danny Burns, along with others. played an important role in building the anti-poll tas movement in the south west of England. It is a great shame. therefore. that he has written a book. Poll Tax Rebell. ion. which maintains some of the myths around lie number two and adds. for good measure. a third lie - that the city and borough-wide federations were an insignificance. and that the involvement of political people. ic Militant sup porters was i hindrance to the BIRDS BOOK NEATIY divides the anti-poll tax movement into Io distinct parts: the whimpers of protest from the Labour leadership and other politicians and the grassroots based non-payment ordinary involving campaign people.
The one contribution this book MIR -31 Autumn 1992 Book Reviens What was Militant's role in the anti-poll tax campaign?
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does make is in its tirst two chapters. where it outlines (albeit in a distorted way) the history of the pathetic protests of the official labour movement - the Stop It Campaign. Labour's Poll Tax Protest' and so on.
There is much here which the Labour leaders should not be allowed to forget. For example. Donald Dewar. Labour's Shadow Scottish Secretary: is quoted from September 1988: "This is a party that aspires to be in government... 1 dont believe such a party can afford sclective amnesia when it comes to the law of the land." But Donald Dewar was only hypothesising about selective amnesia'. Danny Burns, in the rest of the book, seems to have been inflicted with a particularly acute case of this handy illness. The overwhelming theme of the remainder of the book is to contrast "the big difference between those (APTI s) which were run by independent activists and many others... Which were dominated or controlled by political groups." (ic Militant - MC) In Burns' amnesia-ridden world. there were two distinct types of anti-poll tax unions. Firstly, there were the genuine: pure ones. communities'
by ordinars run which were models of democracy and mass participation. Then there were the bad ones. run by nasty Wilitants who were obsessed with dominating things and with minutes, matters arising and treasurers reports. And never the tain shall meet!
He quotes from a number of activists throughout the book to try and uphold this division - probably the most damning' came from Edinburgh: "We had one that he stood for national secret- Just fill in the form below or write to us with a cheque or postal order payable to World Socialist Books 3.13 Hepscott Road. London E9 SHB. Subscription Rates: £5 for four issues, UK/Ireland, £6 overseas. member who was very officious and wanted everything done right. We couldn't quite see the point. We just wanted to get out there and fight the sherift officers." This quote came from Jackie Movers of Mayfield APTI' - what Burns' forgets to mention in his rush to tar Militant with the burcaucrats brush. is that Jackie is a Militant supporter, as is his wife Chris. who between them are the most quoted rank-and-file activists in the book!
WHILE BURNS MANAGES a few begrudging compliments about Militant early on ("Of all the Left groupings they had by far the strongest working class base": "they were the only part of the established labour movement who put forward i strategically coherent policy") they don't stop his obvious hatred of Marxism getting the better of him. Anything associated with Militant supporters is belittled. The People's March Against the Poll Tax was 'elitist'. Dave Nellist. who was the parliamentary spokesperson of the non-payment campaign and became known as the 'antipoll tax MP: doesn't even merit a mention.
The 200.000-strong March 31 1990 demonstration was "called by the non payment campaign" as though the one million leaflets and posters produced by the All- Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation existed. Indeed.
claims that the Federation was 'insignificant' and comes out in support of the Labour leadership's attack on it as a Wilitant front. In another fine display of selective amnesia' Burns forgets to mention ary of this insignificant body for iwo years running!
Burns lays heavy emphasis (+0 out of 200 pages) on the Trafalgar Square riot and the demonstration at Brixton prison attacked by the police. Indeed. his book is pub lished by the same company which published Poll Tax Riot. which effectively argued that Tratalgar Square was the single most important event in the defeat of the poll tax. (The arguments in this pamphlet are dealt with in MIR No.+5) Burns' analysis comes straight from the anarchist tradition of He argues 'spontaneity.
that "most of the successful Anti-Poll Tax I'nions operated on a principle of parallel development" Well. my APTU had over 1.000 members and was extremely successful, but we had never heard of this principle!
What it apparently means is that "sometimes strategies which appcar to be contradictory can actual- Iy reinforce each other". So "the actions of those who are not prepared to break the law were not undermined by (those) who chose to throw fire bombs... the occupations of the courts didn't prevent those who wanted to argue legal technicalities"! In other words. everyone could do whatever they like 'in the name of the Anti-Poll Tax Union' - so what was the point in discussing tactics, what was the point in the union or in mectings at all? This is basically an argument agamst democracy in a movement. Marxism is not a burcaucratic imposition drafted onto the strug gles of the working class. Rather. it is a method of utilising past strug gles (theory is nothing more than concentrated experience) for current battles.
Militant's role in the poll tax struggle was in this tradition. Our aim is not to stifle the immense hidden initiative and talent of workers in bureaucratic structures. On the contrary, the job of Marxists is to tap initiative and anger and give it coherent direct- 10n.
This approach is in contrast to those who argue for 'spontancity" and parallel derelopment. Directionless struggle is precisely that - it gets you nowhere Reading Danny Burns book feels a bit like getting nowhere. It's certainly nothing like a real history of the anti-poll tax movement.
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