Student Conference Backs Counter-demo

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tion for the Irish People -Now'. The Student Movement Conference on Ireland at Canterbury on 13-14 November adopted a plan of action on the basis of - Self-DeterminaTroops Out After a total of eleven hours of debate on the major aspects of the situation in Ireland and the responsibilities which have to be up faced by British students, a campaign was launched which began modestly enough optimistically, expected. [but importantly] with a telegram to the British Government demanding the removal or me wreat to the lives oeroe ana marie Murray, and will move on through mobilisations against the 'Peace People' to a Week of Action in January. A broadly-based co-ordinating committee was set up to oversee the development of the campsDespite the endorsements and commitments given by sections of the reformist left in the NUS, including the presence of members of the Official Republican Movement and individuals from the base of the Broad Left at the conference, the mood from the beginning was for Troops Out Marly of the 100 or more students attending had been won to that position through the debates which had taken place in the colleges in the speaking tour to build the conference. Nevertheless, the absence of any organised presence from the Broad Left — even the speaker from the NUS delegation to Northern Ireland and the promised observer from the Executive failed to turn - changed entirely the nature of the debate which had been, perhaps overHowever, the organisations of the revolutionary left comprised only 20-30 per cent of the students present, and this NUS. ahower s aiscussion or a unione characte to take place for the supporters of the demands which the conference finally adopted. Instead of a bear-garden in which the different groups battled with each other so loser une on me conterence were was a sober and construcave discussion which drew a balance-sheet of previous activity in the NUS, assessed the present situation, and from there drew conclusions Amongst these one of the most important was the identification of the possibilities of winning lavers of women to an anti-imperialist stand already shown the previous weekend when the NUS Women's Conference rejected the Broad Left's position on the Peace People' and instead voted to support the Canterbury confer The conference drew the conclusion that because Britain's domination of Ireland structures the oppression of Irish women and gays, the struggle for their liberation is an integral rather than peripheral part of the fight against British rule. Translating those conclusions into practice. the confer ence called for a women's contingent on the 27 November 'Peace Through Freedom' counter-demonstration, and for the co-ord. inating committee to build for it in the The balance-sheet of the conference then is an overwhelmingly positive one. As the speaker summing up on the composite resolution from the Middlesex Polytechnic students and IMG students [the motion finally adopted] put it: It allows the activists to go from here armed with a plan of action, confident that they can open up a new stage of activity on the Irish question in the NUS which can be a major step forward in the eventual building of a solidarity movement of hundreds of thousands of British people in the streets.' That stage has not arrived yet, but it was brought much closer by the Canterbur AILEAN O'CALLAGHAN