Time To Go charter launched
array of well-known entertainers, including Robbie Coltrane,
Julie Christie, Emma Thompson, and Pete Townsend, have put their
names to a charter for British withdrawal from Ireland launched
last Thursday.
The charter, titled Time to Go, states: ``We must recognise that
there will never be peace while Britian remains in Ireland. This
is our starting point. Let's develop the debate about how British
withdrawal is to be accomplished''.
The 100 strong list of signatories includes academics, lawyers,
artists and politicians, among them historian AJP Taylor,
journalist John Pilger and poet Benjamin Zephaniah. For many
years opinion polls have shown that a majority of British people
favour withdrawal from Ireland, and the list reflects a growing
willingness among people in the public eye to ``stand up and be
counted''.
The charter is being launched as part of a series of events
leading up to the twentieth anniversary of British troops going
onto the streets of Derry and Belfast in August 1969.
The campaign is being headed by Birmingham Labour MP Clare Short,
who told a packed press conference, ``Every time a child is killed
with a plastic bullet it's done in our name. We have to face up
to Britain's responsibility in Ireland''. Clare Short, whose
family originates in Crossmaglen, is a member of the British
Labour Party's `front bench' with a job as a spokesperson on
employment.
Maria Fyfe, Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill, said, ``We have to get
back to the basic point that Britain never had any right to be in
Ireland and it has to get out''.
Other MPs sponsoring the charter include Simon Hughes of the
Social and Liberal Democrats, Dafydd Wigley and Dafydd Elis
Thomas of Plaid Cymru, and Labour MPs Tony Benn, Bernie Grant and
Ken Livingstone.
Phoblacht 10 July 1988
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