Momentum in Stafford - 28th July.

[Joe Hutch]

They were fighting for an independent socialist republic which I take to be a left wing rather than 'national socialist'.

It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

 

[Tony L]

The National Front were doing some pretty scary stuff back in 1977. I wouldn't describe the IRA as 'left-wing'; nationalism is more of a right-wing thing, after all.

The National Front was very scary back in the 70s, as a music fan/later muso I remember the whole Rock Against Racism and later Red Wedge movements very well. There was something very real on the right to kick against and not all at home, e.g. the whole South African apartheid thing was also a left/right divide with certain Tories openly supporting the South African state and branding Mandela a terrorist etc. Then there was the struggle for gay rights etc which again could largely be split down left/right lines. Lots of ugly politics on the right in the 60s, 70s and 80s just as there is now. Militant were a complete bunch of idiots though.

I’ve always looked as Irish politics as a different thing and one I don’t really understand, let alone in terms of left/right. I never got involved in that one!