Militant tendency

The Militant tendency was a group within the UK Labour Party from 1964 to 1991, whose philosophy descended directly from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. It organised as a separate party within the Labour Party, and became effectively Britain's fifth biggest party in the early to mid 1980s.

In 1972 it won a resolution at Labour Party conference which committed the next Labour government to introduce "a socialist plan of production based on public ownership", and in 1975 it came into the public eye through a Labour Party report confirming its entrist tactics and a number of press exposés which followed. From 1975-1980 a number of attempts by some within the leadership of the Labour Party to expel the Militant were rejected by the Labour Party National Executive Committee, which appointed a Militant member to the position of National Youth Organiser in 1976.

In 1982 the Militant was found ineligible for affiliation to the Labour Party and in 1983 the five members of the 'Editorial Board' of the Militant newspaper were expelled from the Labour Party.

In 1983-87 the Militant played a leading role in the Liverpool City Council's struggle against the Conservative government, which initially won concessions from the government, but ended with the banning and surcharging of 47 Liverpool City Councillors, including six Militant supporting councillors, in 1987.

From 1985 onwards a series of moves led by Neil Kinnock against the Militant ended its influence in the party.

In 1989-91 the Militant formed and led the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation in a non-payment campaign against the Conservative government's Community Charge ('poll tax') legislation, widely thought to have led to the downfall of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

After a conference decision in 1991, the Militant tendency abandoned the Labour Party, arguing that the Labour Party had lost its working class base and become a wholly capitalist party. It first changed its name to Militant Labour and then in 1997 to the Socialist Party.

Foundation

The Militant tendency gained its name from the Militant newspaper which its supporters sold. Founded in 1964, the Militant was set up by a group of about forty mainly working class, industrial militants. They were Labour Party members mainly based in Liverpool, "with small forces in London and in South Wales", organised in a group called the Revolutionary Socialist League which followed the ideas of Leon Trotsky, and had been organised around a newspaper called Socialist Fight, which had ceased publication. After the publication of the Militant the group became known as the Militant tendency, and the name 'Revolutionary Socialist League' fell into disuse.

National Secretary Jimmy Deane, together with Ted Grant, Keith Dickenson, Ellis Hillman and others on the executive of this group agreed to launch the Militant newspaper. Peter Taaffe was appointed the first editor, and in 1965 became national secretary.

The name of the paper was the same as that of the American publication The Militant of the American SWP, and as a result "most of the pioneers of Militant were not enthralled by the choice of the name" writes Taaffe. But "Militant did stand for what its proponents intended: the aim of winning in the first instance, the most conscious, combative, fighting, i.e. militant, sections of the working class."

Outlook

The Militant newspaper was founded after the Labour Party won the 1964 general election with a radical programme, which appeared to reject "half-hearted" measures and argued for a "scientific revolution", nationalisations and "purposive planning".

In the first few issues, Militant highlighted the tasks before the new Labour government, calling for "No retreat by Labour" , supporting its programme of the nationalisation of steel and urban land, and urging it to "take action against the big monopolies, combines and trusts which dominate the economy." Under the headline "Another election 'pledge' broken", Militant denounced the £35 billion spent on nuclear weapons and their retention by Labour. Spending on arms was increased. Militant campaigned on the question of the cost of living and in support of the trade union struggle against the Labour Government’s incomes policy.

The Militant considered that the only long term solution to the problems afflicting capitalism in Britain and internationally was to end capitalism in a socialist transformation of society, nationally and internationally. In 1965 it demanded: 'Nationalise the 400 Monopolies'. This was the Militant tendency's version of Trotsky's Transitional Programme, although the number of monopolies to be nationalised reduced over time, as monopolisation increased. It consistently demanded the nationalisation of those companies which were said to control 80 percent or more of the British economy, and place them under workers' control and management, with the establishment of a socialist plan of production. For the Militant tendency, this would mark the end of capitalism and enable the "socialist transformation" of society.

The Labour government came into conflict with the trade unions in 1969, over its In Place of Strife white paper, which was humiliatingly withdrawn. In the first issue of the Militant International Review, (Autumn 1969) Taaffe outlined how "the trade union and Labour Movement scored a tremendous victory in forcing the Labour government to climb down over its proposed anti-trade union legislation." Several strikes had taken place, the "first directly political strikes" in what threatened to be an "irreparable breach between the Labour leaders and their base in the Labour Movement."

Whilst some city financiers considered the Labour government an "extremist Bolshevik Government", and were "conspiring" against it, the Militant tendency argued that the struggle between the Labour Party leadership on the one hand, and the trade unions and socialists in its own membership on the other, arose from the poor economic performance of Britain compared to its competitors. For them, the "capitalist class" wished to make the working class pay for this "crisis" through a policy to restrict workers' incomes: "For a generation now British Capitalism has been in decline ...The capitalists are responsible for this mess. But they want the burdens to be borne by the working class, while their fabulous profits continue to rise. They wanted the Labour government to impose an incomes policy."

International outlook

The Militant tendency's outlook was international. It opposed the Vietnam War, the US intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Franco's fascist regime. Ted Grant, one of the founders of the Militant tendency, arrived in the UK from South Africa in the 1930s, already a convinced follower of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky, together with Lenin, led the Russian revolution of 1917, but the 1930s was the decade in which Stalinism in the Soviet Union became most associated with show trials and brutal dictatorship. Trotsky was one of the foremost Marxist opponents of Stalinism, and by the time of his assassination by a Stalinist agent in 1940, Trotskyism formed a distinct trend of Marxism.

A cornerstone of the Militant tendency's political outlook followed Trotsky's analysis of developments in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. The Militant argued that the establishment of socialism requires the efforts of workers in a number of advanced capitalist countries. The Russian revolution of 1917 had "degenerated" into a bureaucratic dictatorship partly because Russia was largely feudal and could not sustain socialism and partly because the Russian revolution had failed to spread to the capitalist West.

In 1945 Grant, Jock Haston and others played an important role in re-orienting British Marxists to what they began to see as the new but limited period of economic expansion of the 1950s and 1960s in the west, in opposition to the perspectives of the US Socialist Workers Party led by James Cannon in 1945. In 1965, highly critical of the politics of the reunified Fourth International, the Militant tendency turned its back on it after the Eighth World Congress.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Militant tendency spent much energy building sister organisations in Europe and the rest of the world, such as in Sri Lanka, South Africa (where they tried to work within the African National Congress, but were repeatedly expelled and harassed), the Republic of Ireland, and Spain, beginning the formation of the Committee for a Workers' International.

Militants in Merseyside

Jimmy Deane was national secretary of the 'Revolutionary Socialist League' in 1964 when it decided to found the Militant newspaper. He was an electrician and shop convenor at Cammell Laird in Liverpool. Deane joined the Labour Party in 1937 and was one of the pioneers of Trotskyism in Merseyside. He helped form the 'Militant Workers' Federation' after the war, which was involved in a large apprentices movement mainly in the AEU and the ETU. Deane’s maternal grandfather Charles Carrick was elected president of the Liverpool Trades Council in 1905, served for fourteen years as one of Labour's first councillors, and was an organiser for the Marxist Social Democratic Federation. Deane's mother and brothers were all in the Trotskyist movement.

At that time the Liverpool District Labour Party and the Trades Council was a single body, the Liverpool Trades Council and Labour Party until it was split in 1969. The Liverpool Labour Party as a whole was considered to be under the control of Bessie and John Braddock. Bessie Braddock was a former Communist Party member, who had joined the Labour Party in 1922. She became president of the Liverpool Trades Council and Labour Party in 1945 and was MP for Liverpool Exchange. The Braddocks moved to the right of the Labour Party, whereas Albert Houghton, originally a founding member of the Communist Party in Merseyside, had drawn Trotskyist conclusions and by 1939 had "long battled with the Stalinists" in the Labour Party in Merseyside.

Marxism had some influence in the Walton Constituency Labour Party under the leadership of the Deane family in the 1950s and 1960s. Almost ten years before the founding of the Militant tendency, in 1955, Ted Grant was almost selected by the Walton Constituency Labour Party as its parliamentary candidate. In 1959, another supporter of Socialist Fight, the forerunner of the Militant, was selected by Walton Constituency, defeating Woodrow Wyatt in the selection process.

Tommy Birchall, another pioneer of Trotskyism in Merseyside in the 1930s, and of Militant in 1964, was secretary of the Harland and Wolff shop stewards committee, "representing 100 shop stewards and 5000 workers" and chairman of Litherland Labour Party in Bootle after the Second World War. He played a leading role in the 1945 dock strike, which lasted five weeks and successfully secured a guaranteed wage and working week, paid holidays and other benefits for the dock workers. Subsequently working as a printer and Father of Chapel of the union there, he set up Marxist discussion classes which went on to win Tony Mulhearn to Marxism. Mulhearn became one of the most prominent Militant supporters in Merseyside and was President of the Liverpool District Labour Party during the battles of the 1980s.

In 1958 Terry Harrison, a boilermaker at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, joined the RSL . Peter Taaffe joined the Labour Party in 1960, and "In the Labour Party I discovered radical, socialist, Marxist ideas and in the course of discussion and debate I accepted those ideas."Shortly after his election to the position of editor of the Militant, Taaffe, together with Ted Mooney and other Militant supporters, participated in an apprentices strike, leading apprentices in English Electric on the East Lancashire Road.

The Militant newspaper

The Militant began as a four page monthly, but was eventually turned into a 16 page weekly. It outlined the policies of the Militant tendency and publicised its activities and campaigns. Militant supporters intervened in labour disputes and moved resolutions in Labour Party branches and at annual conferences. There were constant appeals for money. Issue two states, "Alas, if only all this enthusiasm could be translated into hard cash! Money, we regret, is already very short."

In an atmosphere of general tolerance within the Labour Party until the 1980s, the Militant was able to be completely open about its supporters, and argue for its ideas openly. Various moves against the paper and its supporters, beginning in 1975, failed until 1983. Articles in the Militant newspaper almost always carried a 'by-line' stating the author and the Labour Party or Labour Party Young Socialist branch of which he or she was a member, or the trade union branch where appropriate - the Militant never employed professional journalists.

A sister publication was the more theoretical Militant International Review.

Entryism

In the editorial of the first issue of the Militant in 1964, Taaffe wrote:

The job is to carry the message of Marxism to the ranks of the labour movement and to its young people. There is room for all tendencies in the labour movement, including the revolutionary Left. Above all the task is to gather together the most conscious elements in the labour movement to patiently explain the need for these policies on the basis of experience and events.

Critics of the Militant tendency claimed that this group 'entered' the Labour Party contrary to its rules and regulations. Militant tendency supporters (as the members termed themselves) at the time of its foundation claimed a membership of the Labour Party stretching back to the 1930s. The Militant tendency also claimed that groups of Marxists and socialists, as well as non-socialists, had been organised as separate organisations within the Labour Party since its inception. It claimed that groups such as the Social Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party considered themselves Marxist or had Marxist trends within them, and were active within the Labour Party since its foundation for various periods of time. For opponents of this argument, the distinction between 'reformist' and 'revolutionary' currents was a deciding factor.

Revolutionary currents

During the formation of the British Communist Party in 1920 Lenin had advised the Communist Party to affiliate to the Labour Party, claiming that the Labour Party is "obliged to grant its members complete latitude", citing the freedom of the British Socialist Party to publish articles in its newspaper which were highly critical of the Labour Party leadership.

Affiliation by the Communist Party was prevented, however. The leadership of the Labour Party, especially Arthur Henderson and Ramsey MacDonald, were strongly anti-communist, but by 1919 the Labour Party membership had swung in support of the Russian Revolution and voted for "direct action" to stop the British invasion of Russia “to the distress of its leaders” at the 1919 Labour Party conference. A vote to join the new Third [Communist] International received a "respectable number of votes". The conference agreed that all party branches and sections should to discuss the Labour Party's affiliation.

Lenin argued, "In such circumstances, it would be a mistake not to join this party" but in 1920 the leadership of the Communist Party disagreed, and for his part MacDonald “abated nothing in his hatred of Communism, or of his determination to disassociate his party from all taint of Communist associations”. Affiliation of Communists was formally blocked in 1924 and a 'proscribed list' of organisations which were ineligible for Labour Party affiliation was established in 1933.

Despite the split between the Second and Third International in 1920 at the time of the former's reconstruction, for the Militant tendency Lenin's argument was their self-justification. Lenin's precept that "we favour affiliation insofar as the Labour Party permits sufficient freedom of criticism", which Trotsky later echoed, to the Militant tendency meant that revolutionary socialists should clearly identify themselves and make clear their criticism of the Labour Party leadership and of the other trends, both in Labour Party meetings and in print.

Bans and proscriptions

In the 1930s many Communist and former Communist Party members, and later Trotskyists also including some of the forebears of the Militant tendency, were in the Labour Party following Lenin and Trotsky's advice, despite the Labour Party's rejection of repeated Communist Party requests for affiliation. The Labour Party leadership regularly disaffiliated groups that appeared to be Communist or Communist sympathisers operating within the Labour Party. Future Labour Party leaders such as Michael Foot, Barbara Betts (the later Barbara Castle), Aneurin Bevan and Stafford Cripps were leaders of the Socialist League which was disaffiliated in 1937 because it advocated unity with the Communist Party. Cripps and Bevan were expelled. However, some argue that there was a genuine desire for unity with the Communist Party against fascism.

In 1964, when the Militant was founded, the 'witchhunts' as they were widely termed, had halted and Labour had been voted into power again. In the 1950s, with remarkable parallels to the period of 1983-86 when the Militant was being expelled, there were several moves against Aneurin Bevan, who was responsible for the formation of the National Health Service in 1948, and Michael Foot, who later became Labour Party leader, culminating in 1955 when Bevan survived by one vote. Jim Mortimer, later to become Labour Party General Secretary, was forced to leave the Labour Party because of Communist sympathies at this time. But by 1959 Bevan was deputy leader and in 1963 the whip was restored to Michael Foot, who had been expelled from the Parliamentary Labour Party.

This period of proscriptions and expulsions is cited as having a profound effect on the Labour Party and its reluctance to discipline the Militant tendency. Many on the Labour Party's National Executive Committee were "determined not to allow a return to what they saw as the 'McCarthyism' of the past". The proscribed list fell into disuse and when he became General Secretary in 1972 Ron Hayward burned the Labour Party central office files on left-wingers.

Militant and its forerunners regarded leaders such as Ramsey MacDonald to be traitors to the working class, and more or less openly disregarded regulations which sought to bar the revolutionary left, which they saw as vestiges from the former right-wing period, with considerable impunity. The Militant was forthright in its criticism of the Labour Party leadership. At its mass rallies in the 1980s the Militant displayed two huge banners at each side of the stage, one showing Marx and Engels, and the other showing Lenin and Trotsky, and never disavowed the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky.

Right-wing organisations

Michael Crick, author of The March of Militant, shows that the Militant is guilty of breaking Clause II, section of the Labour Party constitution, but also that "many other" groups, left and right, also break the same Labour Party rules, naming Labour Solidarity, the Labour Co-ordinating Commmittee and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, amongst others. The constitution, Crick writes, has always been taken "by all pressure groups, on the left and on the right, with a particularly large pinch of salt".

The Militant tendency argued that the right-wing Fabian Society was a well organised group which campaigns against the constitution, since its leading figures had tried in 1959 to remove the "Socialist clause", the original "Clause IV, part IV", from the Labour Party constitution, but were overturned by conference. The Militant did not argue that the Fabians should be expelled as entryists, but rather that it demonstrated that the Labour Party is a "broad church". The "Socialist clause", printed on every party member's membership card from 1959 until abandoned in 1995, called for the "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange" and was itself written by a Fabian in 1918 following the Russian revolution of 1917, though in fact it was ambiguously worded in order to gain support from the radicalised membership whilst allowing the Labour Party leadership to distance themselves from more revolutionary currents.

Politics of struggle between left and right

The Militant tendency argued that attacks on the Militant and the left in the Labour Party by the leadership were ultimately political in nature, and represented a struggle between a pro-capitalist leadership which wished to implement anti-trade union legislation in order to improve the competiveness of British capitalism, and Labour Party members who saw such legislation as attacks on the working class who they sought to defend. Amongst these members, drawn in many cases from a trade union background, the Militant tendency saw many who to varying degrees aspired towards a socialist solution to the problems the working class faced, and who saw socialism in the Labour Party's 1964 manifesto and its apparent support for "purposive planning" against "economic free-for-all". The Labour Party manifesto said:

Tinkering with policies that have clearly failed and half-hearted conversion to principles previously rejected will not suffice. Only a major change of attitude to the scientific revolution, including an acceptance of the need for purposive planning, will enable us to mobilise the new resources technology is creating and harness them to human needs. .

The Militant tendency and others argued that resistance to expulsions by the right-wing of the party is a defence of the socialist traditions of the Labour Party. They argued that the Labour Party was the mass party of the working class, and socialists such as supporters of the Militant tendency are an integral part of the working class. Many Militant supporters were regarded as "life-long socialists".

See also Expulsion from the Labour Party below

Growth in the 1970s

Background

The first half of the 1970s was a convulsive period in UK politics and industrial relations, which coincided with a period of rapid growth of the Militant tendency. It began with the election of a Conservative government in 1970, a year in which days lost in strike action had risen to almost 11 million. In 1972 this had doubled to over 22 million. In 1974, support for the miners' strike, particularly of the electrical power workers, together with other mounting industrial trade union activity led the Conservative government to declare a state of emergency, petrol rationing and power cuts. The government introduced a three day working week, and called a sudden general election in February 1974 to "let the voters decide who governs the country", the Government or the trade unions.The Conservative government fell and a minority Labour government was elected.

Growth

In 1970, the Militant tendency bought premises belonging to the old Independent Labour Party, one of the founding parties of the Labour Party, and which originally had a Marxist element in its leadership. In September 1971, the Militant newspaper became fortnightly, although still just four pages, and in January 1972 it became weekly. By the end of 1972 it became an 8 page weekly.

During the period 1969 - 1972, Militant supporters began to win a majority in the Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS), and by 1972 had a clear majority on the LPYS National Committee. The Labour Party Young Socialists grew rapidly. In 1973, the Labour Party Young Socialists conference attracted one thousand delegates and visitors. "Militant, however, still only had 397 organised supporters by March 1973 despite its growing influence. By July of the same year it had grown to 464." The Labour Party's 1973 decision to abolish the old 'proscribed list' of organisations which could affiliate to the Labour Party reflected the radicalisation of the Labour Party membership, and particularly the affiliated trade unions, during the early 1970s and isolated those right-wing elements within the Labour Party officialdom who wished to ban the Militant tendency.

Programmatic demands

The Militant tendency called for the nationalisation of the top 350 monopolies, and by the end of the 1970s, 250, as monopolisation continued to concentrate the ownership of industry and commerce into fewer hands.

At the 1972 Labour Party national conference a resolution moved and seconded by well known, long standing Militant tendency supporters, Pat Wall and Ray Apps, was passed by 3,501,000 votes to 2,497,000. It demanded that the Labour government commit itself to enacting "an enabling bill to secure the public ownership of the major monopolies". The conference agreed to call on the Labour Party executive to

formulate a socialist plan of production based on public ownership, with minimum compensation, of the commanding heights of the economy.

Militant supporter Pat Wall declared: "No power on earth can stop the organised labour movement!" and "called for Labour to win the workers to a programme of taking power by taking over the 350 monopolies which controlled 85 per cent of the economy." The Militant newspaper commented "This is an answer to those who argue for a slow, gradual, almost imperceptible progress towards nationalisation."

The vote of leading Militant supporter Peter Doyle, the elected representative of the Labour Party Young Socialists on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party, gave the left a majority on the NEC and enabled a successful vote in 1972 to adopt the programmatic demand of the left-wing Tribune newspaper in the Labour Party, for the public ownership of 25 of Britain's top companies. However, "The day after the NEC, Harold Wilson threatened that the shadow cabinet would veto its inclusion in the next election manifesto."

In 1973 Militant quoted comments from right winger Denis Healey:

We are all agreed with the need for a massive extension of public ownership... establishing comprehensive planning control over the hundred or so largest companies in Britain... and to extend public ownership in the profitable manufacturing industries.

When Reg (later Lord) Underhill's report into the activities of the Militant tendency was leaked to the press and began to attract media attention in 1975, the Militant newspaper emphasised the consonance of its policies with the decisions of the Labour Party conference, which demonstrated its legitimacy as a genuine current within the Labour party. During this period Militant supporters debated with the Tribune newspaper supporters about whether, at first, to nationalise a minority of the corporations which dominated British society, as the Tribune argued, or whether to proceed immediately to nationalise the commanding heights, as Militant held. Articles in both newspapers reflected the discussion.

Press attention and 'the Winter of Discontent'

In 1975, Cabinet minister Reg Prentice, later Lord Prentice of Daventry, was deselected by his constituency of Newham North-east, and the Militant were implicated. Militant cited Prentice’s attacks on trade unionists, such as the imprisoned Pentonville Five in 1972, and his refusal to meet a delegation of trade unionists from the West Ham trades council lobbying for the release of the imprisoned Shrewsbury pickets, as reasons for anger in his constituency. 181 MPs, including 13 cabinet ministers, backed Prentice. Prentice's deselection was later endorsed by the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, his appeal to 1976 Labour Party conference failed, and he defected to the Conservative party in 1977. But at the time Prime Minister Harold Wilson declared that "small and not necessarily representative groups" had "infiltrated" the constituency, thus beginning the "bed-sit infiltrators" media coverage.

The Militant is not considered the primary force behind the move to oust the right-wing Prentice, their candidate only receiving one third of the votes in the selection process, but rather was part of a broader coalition of left groups. The Militant also denied moving members into the constituency. Michael Crick says, "the more notable bed-sit infiltrators proved to be Paul McCormick and Julian Lewis, two students who had come to Prentice's defence."

By this time the security service MI5 had become alarmed by a developing economic crisis and the growing militancy of the left, and felt that the stability of the British state could be severely threatened. In November 1975 Reg (later Lord) Underhill, who had become the Labour Party National Agent with a "long-standing reputation as a witchhunter" produced a report for the Labour Party National Executive Committee on Trotskyist groups in the Labour Party which was leaked to the press.

The Observer newspaper ran the first article on the activities of the Militant tendency with the headline: "Trot conspirators inside Labour Party" by Nora Beloff, who wrote that the Militant was a "party within a party", with the implication that this was illegitimate.

In October 1976, after James Callaghan took over as Labour Party's Prime Minister, there were a series of press articles attacking the Labour Party National Executive Committee's decision to appoint well known Militant tendency supporter Andy Bevan as Labour Party Young Socialist Youth Officer. Bevan had been a member of Reg Prentice’s constituency and played a part in his removal. The Daily Express wrote: "Just five men have Labour on the Trot... Express dossier of the unknowns behind the Red challenge to Jim." The Times carried three articles and an editorial about the danger of the Militant tendency, which it exposed as wanting to "establish a group of MPs"

Observer journalist, Michael Davie in December 1976 interviewed Peter Taaffe, then Militant tendency's general secretary. Davie wrote:

'No country constitutes a genuinely democratic workers’ state,' Mr Taaffe said. He spoke of the ‘monstrous police apparatus’ in Russia, and the dictatorships of China and Cuba. Why would not the same thing happen here, if everything was taken over by the state? "Because Britain has a long democratic tradition, and there is no possibility of a socialist society being attained here without the working class, and the middle class, being convinced of the necessity of the change." I left Mr Taaffe thinking that Militant and Andy Bevan between them have got Transport House over a barrel.

The Militant newspaper argued that the Labour Party lost the 1979 election due to anger at the £8 billion cuts carried out by the Labour government, following the crisis caused by speculation on the pound and the subsequent visit by the International Monetary Fund. Rather than turn to the IMF, the Militant argued, the government should have turned to socialist policies to end the reign of the speculators. It also blamed the Labour government's wage restraint of 1978-9, which, it claimed, gave rise to the "Winter of discontent" - a period of union struggle against the government's wage restraint in the winter of 1978-1979, prior to the general election.

Instead of carrying out socialist policies, the Labour leadership, attempting to manage capitalism in a period of crisis, embarked on attacks on workers' living standards, in particular through a series of pay policies...Through their policies during 1974-9, the Labour leaders paved the way for Thatcher." .

The Militant tendency in Liverpool

Background

After the defeat of the Labour Party by the conservatives in 1979, the Labour Party swung leftwards. The Labour Party conference of 1979 agreed to the mandatory reselection of MPs and to take the drawing up of the election manifesto out of the hands of the MPs and place it in the hands of the elected NEC. . It also agreed to elect leaders by an electoral college, previously the province of the MPs, and through support from the shopworkers union USDAW, the Militant Tendency's formulation for the composition of the electoral college was adopted at a subsequent conference. The Militant called the 1979 conference "A watershed in the devlopment of the Labour Party" . Roy Jenkins, a former Labour MP, declared the need for a party of the "Radical centre" in 1979 and in 1981 three of Merseyside's four MPs defected to the Social Democractic Party, joning a number of other right-wing Labour MPs, mainly from the Manifesto Group of MPs.

In Liverpool, the City Council was mostly under the control of coalitions of the Conservatives and Liberals in 1979-1983. But when, for a short period in 1980, the Labour Party gained minority control, it had reluctantly opted for a 50% increase in the rates to avoid further cuts in local services, which was threatened due to central government changes in the rate support grant. The Militant criticised this approach. Labour lost control of the council with the loss of six seats in the subsequent 1980 polls, a significant punishment at that time, and the worst losses since 1964..

In July 1981, in the depressed area of Toxteth in Liverpool, serious riots broke out. Conservative Minister Michael Heseltine was appointed Minister for Merseyside, and £20 million of extra money was made available for the area by the government. However the housing charity Shelter, in its journal Roof, criticised Heseltine's "professions of concern about the problems he has seen on Merseyside" since "it was he who savaged the Housing Investment Programme and re-calculated the Rate Support Grant to favour the shire counties at the expense of inner cities." . The Militant tendency highlighted the social deprivation in Merseyside. Total income for the city council between 1974 and 1979 had fallen by 18 percent, and expenditure fell by 14%, yet its rents were the highest outside London. In 1981 unemployment in Merseyside almost equalled the number unemployed in the whole of Wales. Householders also suffered. The Liberal-Tory coalition of 1981 raised rates for 1982 by 21.5%.

Programme

It was the government's cuts to the Rate Support Grant for the city which the Militant tendency claimed was unfair. It argued that £30 million was "stolen" from Liverpool by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government. Prominent Liverpool Militant supporters such as Derek Hatton and Tony Mulhearn argued that the minority Labour Council of 1980 should have attempted to set an illegal "deficit budget", spending money on the needs of the people of Liverpool, even if it exceeded the council's income. It should demand that central government return the "stolen" money to balance the books.

By 1982 the Liverpool District Labour Party and a broad alliance of left leaning Labour Party councillors in the Liverpool Labour Party adopted the policies which the Militant tendency had been proposing for the city. It adopted the slogan "Better to break the law than break the poor" which had been the slogan of the Poplar council in the east end of London in 1919-20, which took on the unfair rating system of the time and won. The Labour Party's opponents in Liverpool made the most of the far-left Militant basis of the policies of the Liverpool Labour Party. In the Vauxhall ward, a Liberal leaflet proclaimed "Why no Catholic can vote Labour on Thursday" and carried a picture of the Pope. It claimed "Labour's Militants not only want to close our schools but would ban religion as well." .

In 1984 the Liverpool council, already widely seen as a militant council due to local and national media coverage, launched its Urban Regeneration Strategy to build 5000 houses, seven sports centres, new parks, six new nursery classes and other works, many of which were seen to completion. [5]

Electoral success

In the June 1983 general election the Labour Party, which had just expelled the Militant Editorial Board (see The Militant and the Labour Party below) scored its worst post-war defeat with 209 seats. In Liverpool, however, in the face of substantial negative press coverage, the newly Militant-led Labour Party won a substantial victory in the May local elections, and then again in the June general election. The Liverpool Labour Party, now committed to an ambitious regeneration strategy, whilst refusing to make any above-inflation rent and rate rises, gained 12 seats, including the seat of the Tory leader, and Labour took control of the council.

Labour's local election vote in Liverpool increased by 40%, or 22,000 extra votes. In Broadgreen, Labour's vote increased by 50% and in the June 1983 elections, Militant supporter Terry Fields, standing on the slogan of "A workers' MP on a workers' wage", won the seat for Labour. The BBC had classed the seat as a marginal Tory seat in 1979. "It was the only Tory seat that was won by labour" the Militant reported. .

The Liverpool Labour Party's vote continued to rise: "In 1982 Labour got 54,000 votes in the city, in 1983 77,000 votes, and in 1984 this soared to over 90,000. In 33 of the 34 contested seats Labour's vote increased. Labour held all 14 seats it was defending and seven seats were won from the Tories." .

Success in 1984

At first, during the Miners strike of 1984-85, the Liverpool City Council was successful in getting concessions from central government. The Times newspaper said on the 11 July 1984: "Today in Liverpool, municipal militancy is vindicated...a third rate provincial politician, a self publicising revolutionary...Mr Derek Hatton has made the government give way." The Council was in an alliance with left-led councils across Britain. The left leaderships of these councils favoured a strategy of delaying the setting of the budget, but one by one they found the means of setting a budget, leaving Liverpool and Lambeth to fight alone.

Issues redundancy notices

In September 1985 the Labour group on the council decided on the 'tactic' of issuing 90-day redundancy notices to the 30,000 strong workforce to "gain that period as a breathing space in order to build the campaign". Liverpool councillors were advised by the District Auditor that the council was about to break its legal obligations and would not be able to pay wages to its staff. The one legal loophole the District Auditor suggested, was to announce that all staff were being made redundant. In his autobiography, Deputy Council leader Derek Hatton acknowledges that taking this advice was an enormous mistake, from which the council never recovered. It was, the Militant's general secretary wrote, "a major tactical error." .

See also Neil Kinnock and the Militant below

Regeneration strategy

In the mean time, the Urban Regeneration Strategy of the Liverpool City Council continued to provide jobs and build houses, schools and sports facilities. Lord Reg Underhill, since 1975 a long-standing opponent of the Militant, wrote in a letter to The Guardian (25 September 1985)

I went to see the effects of Liverpool's regeneration strategy... The five year plan is to get rid of outdated and sub-standard housing, the crumbling tenements and soulless systems-built tower flats. Already 3800 separate homes have been built, with their own private gardens and nearby off-street parking... improved street layouts, with tree-lined residential roads are planned. We saw the start of the 100 acre park at Everton and of the initial development of other local parks. There are to be seven sport centres; three have just been opened. The scheme will provide work for 12,000 with side effects producing further thousands of jobs. Without commenting on the rating situation, how much is being saved to the Treasury by this employment?

Expulsion from the Labour Party

The Militant tendency organised a special conference against the "witchhunt" at the Wembley Conference Centre in September 1982 at which Ken Livingstone spoke, with an attendance from 1622 delegates from constituency Labour Parties, 412 trade union delegates and 1000 visitors, showing the considerable influence the Militant tendency had at that stage amongst ordinary members of the Labour Party. Livingstone said "The people fighting to get rid of the Militant, were previously fighting alongside those who deserted to the SDP."

However at the 1982 Labour Party conference, the Militant tendency was declared ineligible for affiliation to the Labour Party, and its application was refused.

After an investigation, on February 22, 1983, to enormous press publicity, the Labour Party's National Executive Committee expelled from membership the five members of Militant's Editorial Board, Peter Taaffe, Ted Grant, Keith Dickinson, Lynn Walsh and Clare Doyle. They appealed at the Labour Party national conference in October of that year. Peter Taaffe notes that "80 per cent of the delegates from the Constituency Labour Parties and a considerable number of rank-and-file trade union delegates voted against expulsion." However the appeal was lost when the big unions cast their block votes, on a card vote of 4,972,000 to 1,790,000. "The votes, which had already been lined up by right-wing union general secretaries, were heavily in favour of the platform’s recommendation for expulsions" comments Taaffe.

The opposition to the expulsions was widespread, and was even reflected in the Labour Party's own publications. In Labour's magazine, New Socialist (September-October 1982) an editorial denounced the 'witch-hunt' against the Militant tendency:

The expulsion of leading Militant supporters [is] wrong. The Labour Party always has been a broad collection that includes Marxists amongst its ranks. The Militant tendency, drawing as it does upon Trotsky's critique of Stalinism, belongs to this Marxist tradition, and has a legitimate place within the Labour Party.

The charges being levelled against Militant that it is 'a party within a party' is one that can be levelled with equal justification against any other groups within the Labour Party on both the left and right...

The very existence of the Militant and other groups within the Labour Party is a source of strength rather than a weakness. By working for the adoption of alternative policies and candidates, they assist the democratic functioning of the party.

This unusual history of the Labour Party, as one of a "broad church" of affiliated parties (such as the Independent Labour Party) and socialist societies, including Marxist leaning groups, for a while prevented Labour Party leaders such as Michael Foot from acting against the Militant.

Many Labour Party leaders, such as Neil Kinnock and even Tony Blair, attributed to Marxism their initial impulse to become active in the Labour Party. Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair, for instance, in a letter to Michael Foot written in 1982, said: "Like many middle class people I came to Socialism through Marxism (to be more specific through Deutscher's biography of Trotsky)".

Although as Trotskyists the Militant tendency did not share, in various ways, the same analysis of much of the rest of the Labour Party, they were a visible component of that coalition. The Militant, who claimed to be nothing more than readers of a newspaper, were demonstrated to be members of a Leninist or else a Trotskyist political party, with an elected central committee and an internal regime based on democratic centralism, by organisations within the Labour Party such as the Merseyside Labour Coordinating Committee (LCC), which submitted a report to the Labour Party leadership in 1985-6. However, the Merseyside LCC rejected "large scale expulsions", commenting that

A theory of organisational conspiracy, however, has limited explanatory power. Militant has very deep roots in the Liverpool party, and has gained considerable respect for its commitment and its association with ridding the party of the discredited right-wing machine. Furthermore, its workerist, bureaucratic but anti-capitalist policies have a great appeal among many party members in the city. Many members see them as left – militant with a little 'm' rather than Militant with a big 'M'. This false image is naturally cultivated carefully by their organisation. More recently it has been strengthened by alliances made with local authority activists, mainly in the manual unions, for whom their top-down socialism has immediate appeal and material benefits in terms of jobs and conditions.

These alliances with the working class of Liverpool, based on support for Militant's policies, prevented any action against the Liverpool District Labour Party until 1986.

Neil Kinnock and Militant tendency

But while Michael Foot made no significant progress in removing the bulk of Militant supporters from the Labour Party, his successor Neil Kinnock carried on with more vigour. Many of those around Kinnock had held on to control of the National Organisation of Labour Students in the 1970s, whilst the Militant tendency gained increasing support in the Labour Party Young Socialists. The group around Kinnock did not accept Militant tendency's claim to be no more or less well organised than any other grouping within the Labour Party.

The tactical decision of the leadership of Liverpool City Council to issue redundancy notices to all their workforce backfired and handed a propaganda gift to a Labour leader who had made no secret of his contempt for Trotskyism. The tactic was opposed by the City Council Shop Stewards - despite the committee being strongly influenced by the Militant tendency - "after a long and bitter debate" on 7 September 1985, by 51 votes to 48.

However, no member of staff was ever made redundant. On the reverse of the redundancy notices it was stated that the issuing of the notices was a legal manoeuvre to keep the Council solvent whilst the campaign for more funding continued. It also said that disciplinary action would be taken against anyone who raised the matter with the unions. The national leadership of the Militant tendency immediately distanced itself from this tactic, whilst acknowledging the enormous pressure Derek Hatton and non-Militant Tony Byrne were under at the time, and whilst condemning what it called the hypocrisy of the attacks on the Liverpool leadership, since, it said, real cuts and genuine redundancies were being forced on councils and council workers all over the country.

Nevertheless, Kinnock, coming from the left, believed he had an instinctive understanding of the ideology of the Militant that a previous generation of Labour leaders had not, and that made him only more determined to take them on. With Derek Hatton emerging as a bogeyman for the Tories and the right-wing press, Kinnock and his followers felt that there were tactical advantages in being seen to take on the entryists.

In what many people have since come to see as a crucial stage in the move to the creation of New Labour, Kinnock then made a speech to the Labour Party Conference in 1985 that attacked the Militant tendency and their record on Liverpool Council:

I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with a far-fetched series of resolutions, and these are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, misplaced, outdated, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council, a Labour council, hiring taxis to scuttle round the city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers. I tell you - and you'll listen - you can't play politics with people's jobs and people's homes and people's services.

The speech split the conference. The reaction from sections of the conference was close to ecstatic while other delegates booed, Eric Heffer walked off the platform and Derek Hatton repeatedly shouted "liar" at Kinnock from the floor. His speech caused fury on the left, who felt Kinnock should have supported the council and used his authority to make clear the tactical aims of the council in issuing the redundancy notices. Since Kinnock ruled out compensation for the miners after their year long strike, some miners and miners' Women's Support Group members were in tears.

Few trade union leaders had ever had much sympathy with the Militant tendency and the supposed threat, whether a mistaken tactic or real, to sack every employee in the city had legitimised a hugely negative reaction from those trade union leaders who opposed the Liverpool council's strategy.

Kinnock's speech was played repeatedly all over the media, and spurred on by the positive media response, Kinnock subsequently suspended the operation of Liverpool District Labour Party and appointed Peter Kilfoyle as an organiser with a specific remit to remove Militant tendency supporters from the Labour Party.

Kinnock's speech was used in the Labour Party's 1987 election broadcast, but Labour gained its second worst election defeat since the Second World War. The Labour Party gained 20 seats in the 1987 General Election, but still lost the election by a Conservative landslide of more than 100 seats.

The three MPs associated with the Militant (Pat Wall, Dave Nellist and Terry Fields) all increased their majorities. Labour also did particularly well in Liverpool, leading the Militant tendency to again deny Neil Kinnock's claim that the Militant tendency's policies were unpopular. The Militant's general secretary, Peter Taaffe subsequently wrote:

Without the attack on the Liverpool Militant supporters, and a subsequent witch-hunt against others on the left, the right wing leadership would not have been able to carry through a massive revision in party policy in the period 1985-7. The attack on Liverpool paved the way for the defeat of Labour in the 1987 general election.

This opinion was not restricted to the Militant tendency. Others were vocal in their opposition to the attacks on the Militant. Michael Meacher MP, then strongly aligned with Tony Benn, had written in the Labour Party's Labour Weekly (18 February 1983) that John Golding, one of those prominent in pursuing the expulsions of Militant supporters, was "bleeding the party's election prospects to death".

Over the following years the Labour Party machinery continued to expel supporters of the Militant Tendencu such as the MP Terry Fields, often to the acclaim of the national media and many mainstream politicians seeking to regain control of the party apparatus from the entryist faction. After the closure of the Liverpool Labour Party, a broad left coalition began to stand independent "labour" candidates in Liverpool, which put pressure on the Militant tendency to do the same. After much debate, Militant supporters in Liverpool stood Lesley Mahmood as a "Real Labour" candidate against Kilfoyle in the Liverpool Walton by-election, 1991, its first steps outside the Labour Party electorally, giving the Labour Party further grounds to continue with its expulsions.

The Poll Tax

In 1988, Thatcher began preparations for a Community Charge to replace the council rates. Instead of one payment per household based on rateable value of the property, the poll tax was to be paid by all people who were 18 or over. Many working class families faced bills four or more times larger than their rates bills, where young adults had not yet been able to leave home. The rates bills themselves had been subject to significant increases, (such as the 50% increase in Liverpool cited above) and were popularly considered to be too high.

The Militant tendency held meetings to argue for a strategy of non-payment, and began organising Anti-Poll tax Unions, beginning in Scotland. The anti-poll tax unions grew rapidly in 1989, and soon regional and national bodies were set up, which Militant organised and led. Militant supporters like Liverpool MP Terry Fields and Glasgow Councillor Tommy Sheridan were sent to prison for refusing to pay the poll tax.

One of the largest demonstrations London had seen that century, which led to a significant riot in Trafalgar Square. Non-payment rose to 17.5 million people in serious arrears, and central government began to consider the community charge unworkable. The poll tax was swiftly abandoned by the newly elected Prime Minister John Major.

Thatcher called the victory of the 14 million strong, anti-Poll Tax movement led by the Militant:

...one of the greatest victories for these people ever conceded by a Conservative Government

In her autobiography, Thatcher appears to blame the anti-poll tax movement for unnerving her peers in government, causing her downfall. Thatcher, who called the poll tax legislation her "flagship" policy, would give no ground and refused to repeal the poll tax legislation. As a result she was forced to resign as leader of the Conservative Party by her own MPs. In her autobiography, Thatcher says she was told that "Most people were worried about the community charge...I intervened to say I could not pull rabbits out of a hat...I could not now credibly promise a radical overhaul of the community charge, no matter how convenient it seemed."

The Militant tendency's entire campaign had been conducted outside of the Labour Party structures, where no significant support could be won to the idea of an illegal non-payment campaign, and was conducted against Labour Party policy, and in the face of both the threat of expulsions and actual expulsions. Militant MP Terry Fields was removed as a Labour MP for not paying his poll tax, less than two weeks after being released from jail after serving sixty days for the same crime. Labour Leader Neil Kinnock said "Mr Fields has chosen to break the law and he must take the consequences." Most Militant members drew the conclusion that the way forward was blocked in the Labour Party.

The 'Open Turn'

In April 1991 the Militant tendency decided to support the setting up of Scottish Militant Labour, an independent organisation in Scotland, which was to see the election of Tommy Sheridan, the leader of the Anti-Poll Tax Unions in Scotland, from his jail cell where he was serving six months for obstructing the collection of the Poll Tax in 1992. He won the Pollok ward on Glasgow City Council. He also caused a "minor earthquake" by taking second place in the Pollok constituency at the 1992 General Election, finishing ahead of both the Conservatives and the Scottish National Party with 6,287 votes.

At the same time, the Militant tendency decided to support independent Broad Left candidates in Liverpool standing against the official Labour Party. All five Broad Left candidates (not Militant tendency members) won in the May 1991 local elections. Eric Heffer, MP for Walton died in May 1991, and the Broad Left decided to stand Militant supporter Lesley Mahmood as the candidate of "Real Labour". Militant endorsed the decision with Ted Grant and Rob Sewell on the Militant executive opposing. .

Majority and Minority resolutions were presented to the Militant National Editorial Board meeting of 14-16 July 1991 on the question of this "open turn", and a faction formed around Ted Grant's Minority position. (The National Editorial Board comprised representatives from all regions and areas of work of the Militant tendency, and functioned as a National Executive Committee.) The Majority resolution, in support of the open work, was agreed by 46 votes to 3, whilst the Minority one was defeated 3 to 43 at the 14-16 July 1991 meeting. Documents from each faction were subsequently circulated. This began the debate about an "Open Turn", first called the "Scottish Turn". The documents of the Majority and Minority are at Marxism and the British Labour Party - the 'Open Turn' debate.

The Minority argued that this turn from work in the Labour Party was a "threat to 40 years work", and that "only about 250" supporters had been expelled, out of a membership which in the late 1980s had numbered 8000. They argued that it was irresponsible to endanger this work in view of an anticipated swing to the left in the Labour Party. "The classical conditions for entrism will undoubtedly arise during the next epoch - two, three, five or even ten years — as the crisis of world capitalism, and especially British capitalism, unfolds."

The Majority did not dispute the numbers expelled. It argued "we face a profoundly changed situation". The right wing's policies and methods, particularly those of Neil Kinnock, "have led to a severe decline in the level of activity within the party...Marxists are tolerated within the party only where they do not pose a threat at the moment." The Labour Party Young socialists had been closed.

In the early to mid-eighties, we had fifty to seventy delegates to the Labour Party annual conference, and we dominated many of the key debates. By 1987-88, this had been reduced to between thirty and forty delegates, and is currently down to a small handful. This has not come about because of any deliberate withdrawal from work within the constituencies. It reflects the decline in activity within the CLPs and the witch-hunt against our comrades.

At a special conference of the Militant tendency in October 1991, after a lengthy period of debate and discussion, 93% of delegates voted to support the "Scottish turn". They supported the view that because there was "a blockage within the Labour Party, created by the right-wing Kinnock leadership at the present time, we have to continue to develop independent work and not allow our distinct political identity to be submerged through fear of expulsions." In Scotland, it supported "a bold, open detour in order to strengthen our forces."

Thus in 1991 the Militant tendency effectively abandoned the Labour Party, and changed its name to Militant Labour. The minority, led by Ted Grant and Alan Woods, went on to set up the Workers International League, better known by the name of their publication, Socialist Appeal.

In 1997, Militant Labour changed its name to the Socialist Party of England and Wales. Between 1998 and January 2001 the Scottish section of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), Scottish Militant Labour, proposed the formation of the Scottish Socialist Party with a number of other groups, together with a change in the political character of the Scottish section [6]. In 2001 they broke with the CWI with only a small minority in Scotland remaining.

External links

• The Rise of Militant - the official history
• Militant - official Militant tendency website
• The Socialist Party's Homepage
• In Defence of Marxism - homepage of the Minority
• How the Militant was Built – and How it was Destroyed
• Liverpool, A City That Dared To Fight - Book by Peter Taaffe & Tony Mulhearn on Militant & the Liverpool City Council
• News report of the suspension of the Liverpool Labour Party
• Liverpool 47: Socialism on Trial website of the Liverpool 47 councillors, the 47 councillors who formed the left-wing block on the Liverpool City Council.