Militant Tendency

Outdated, misplaced, irrelevant.~ Neil Kinnock

The Militant Tendency was a group within the Labour Party aligned to the hard left, inspired by the ideologies of Marx, Trotsky and Lenin. It became prominent during the 1980s, where attempts to have the Militants thrown out were rejected numerous times by the NEC. Under Neil Kinnock, the influence of the Militants within the Party was fought, and support died for the hard left died away.

History

In Liverpool

Cover of the Irish Militant newspaper

The Militant Tendency started life in the 1930s as a Trotskyist youth movement internally known as the Revolutionary Socialist League within the Labour League of Youth (aka Young Labour). The group rallied around the monthly publication of their paper Young Militant. By 1937 Young Militant was selling 2,000 copies a month, the largest Trotskyist publication in Britain. The following year the group publicly renamed itself the Militant Labour League and their newspaper became known as simply "Militant". The most well known and modern interpretation of the group sprung up in Liverpool after the 1964 election, urging the party to support the Unions and to end capitalism through a continuation of nationalisation.

Through the 1970s, the Militants grew in number, spreading their ideology and raising funds with the Militant newspaper. In 1972, they forced a resolution at the Labour Party conference, demanding that the Party "formulate a socialist plan of production based on public ownership, with minimum compensation, of the commanding heights of the economy". This resolution was passed with a comfortable majority.

Using their stronghold in Merseyside, the Militants gained control of the Liverpool District Labour Party. It ran by the philosophy of "It's better to break the law than break the poor". Particularly notable was Derek Hatton, Deputy Leader of the Council, who was notoriously outspoken, and regularly attacked the Labour leadership. The Militants in Liverpool built social housing, supported the rate-capping rebellion and in 1985 attempted to pass an illegal budget, demanding that the government make up the deficit.

Expulsion

At the Labour Party conference in 1985, Neil Kinnock delivered a powerful speech damning the Militant Tendency. It is considered one of the greatest post-war political speeches. He declared:

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.

During his speech, in an infamous moment caught on camera, Derek Hatton shouted "Liar!" at the Labour leader. The speech was divisive, but Neil was determined, and he began to expel Militant supporters from the Party as he moved the Party from the far left and towards electability. The Militant Tendency no longer hold any sway in the Labour Party. One of the lawyers who worked on attempting to define the legality of the expulsion of their members was one Tony Blair.

In Fanon

The Militants have yet to be explored in fic, though they are constantly referenced in Labour fic set in the 1980s as a nuisance to Neil, Roy and Peter. It has been noted that Derek Hatton has plenty of slashworthy potential.