Remembering Bobby Sands – And voting Sinn Féin

MANY of us remember 1981 when the people of Fermanagh & South Tyrone voted in their thousands to elect H-Blocks Hunger Striker Bobby Sands as their MP. Over 30,000 voters rallied in support of Bobby and delivered a fatal blow to Britain's policy of criminalisation.

To the anger and consternation of the arch war-monger, Margaret Thatcher, the people of Fermanagh & South Tyrone stood strong against her and her Irish allies in Dublin, in the SDLP and the unionists who would rather see the Hunger Strikers die than compromise around five basic demands.

On Tuesday 5 May, republicans across Ireland marked the 34th anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands, the first of ten men to die in Britain's Long Kesh concentration camp.

They were remembering Bobby Sands as the climax to the 2015 Westminster election draws near and, on Thursday 7 May, the people of the North (and Scotland, Wales and England) can deliver another devastating blow to Britain's Tory war-mongers and their unionist bedfellows.

Since 2010, the British Tory Government of David Cameron has been waging a war against the working-class people of Britain.

He has targeted the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people by ripping the heart out of the welfare system, the National Health Service and the education system.

In the North, the cuts imposed on the Executive have meant that the least-well-off have been made to pay for the crimes of corrupt bankers and stock market gamblers.

On Thursday, voters in the North have the opportunity to fight back by voting Sinn Féin and sending out the clear message to the Tory millionaire robbers and their unionist allies that we oppose austerity and demand equality and justice.

On Wednesday 11 March 1981, the eleventh day of his hunger strike, Bobby Sands wrote in his diary:

“Total equality and fraternity can't, and never will be, gained whilst these parasites dominate and rule the lives of a nation. There is no equality in a society that stands upon the economic and political bog if only the strongest make it good or survive. Compare the lives, comforts, habits, wealth of all those political conmen with that of the wretchedly deprived and oppressed.”

His words are as true today as they were then.

By voting Sinn Féin, we are fighting back.