Union of Ireland (WUI). The new union quickly grew, gaining the allegiance of about two-thirds of the Dublin membership of the ITGWU and of a smaller number of rural members. It was affiliated to the Soviet Red International of Labour Unions (Promintern). With Soviet support, Larkin sought to remove British unions from Ireland, seeing them as 'outposts of British imperialism'. It was also agreed that Irish sections of the communist movement would deal directly with Moscow and would have permanent representation there, rather than going through Britain. Larkin later launched a vicious attack on Tom Johnson who was now leader of the Labour Party and who like Larkin, was Liverpool-born. Johnson had been born to English parents but had spent much of his life in Ireland. Larkin, although born to Irish parents, had spent as long in the US as he had in Ireland. Larkin said that it was "time that Labour dealt with this English traitor. If they don't get rid of this scoundrel, they'll get the bullet and the bayonet in reward. There's nothing for it, but a dose of the lead which Johnson promises to those who look for work." This implied incitement to murder Johnson in a still-violent post-Civil War country resulted in the court awarding Johnson £1000 in libel damages against Larkin. In his 2006 biographical anthology, Donal Nevin noted that his attacks on colleagues in the labour movement, including those the subject of this libel action, meant that Larkin "alienated practically all the leaders of the movement [and] the mass of trade union members". In January 1925, the Comintern sent Communist Party of Great Britain activist Bob Stewart to Ireland to establish a communist party in co-operation with Larkin. A formal founding conference of the Irish Worker League, which was to take up this role, was set for May 1925. A fiasco ensued when the organisers discovered at the last minute that Larkin did not intend to attend. Feeling that the proposed party could not succeed without him, they called the conference off as it was due to start in a packed room in the Mansion House, Dublin. Larkin perceived certain actions undertaken by Stewart as attempts to circumvent his authority, including sending a republican delegation to Moscow and directing £500 sent by the Russian Red Cross intended to aid the Irish famine relief effort to George Lansbury a left-wing British Labour M.P., rather