Talk:Militant tendency

/Archive 1 Talk 2006 - Jan 2007

Restoration (with edits) of deleted para, "militant/rsl", and other problems
Although this article still needs to be raised to a well referenced npov article, I don't feel that the edits by 81.1.67.237 really helped.

The paragraph deleted by 81.1.67.237 refered to the outcome of the 1987 election which the Labour Party fought in part by displaying on their TV election broadcasts Kinnock's denunciation of Liverpool City Council, as generously quoted in full in the article.

The outcome of this election is highly relevent to the subject matter of this article.

The article would have benefitted by an npov edit of the para, with references, expressing the Kinnockite point of view (that Labour was still too tainted with the Militant's influence to be electable) and the opposing point of view, expressed by Blunkett in 1986, on behalf of the 'soft left', that attacking one's own party puts people off voting for it. Others argued that rather than legitimising the battle the Liverool City Council was waging against Labour's political enemy, the Tory party, Kinnock undermined it, giving credit to the Tories.

The logo seems to have disappeared subsequently, and I have replaced it with another.

In general, the article could have more history of its subject. For instance, How did it grow in the 1960s and 1970s? What were the issues it embraced? What was its influence in the Labour Party, and how did it come about? What was its position on the "Winter of discontent" prior to the 1979 defeat of Labour, the causes, etc?

But these questions need first hand references, for instance from the Militant newspaper as the best record of its own views, as well as some from critical sources. I'll try to find time to help this project if I can.

81.1.67.237 added a passage in which the Militant tendency is refered to as "militant/rsl"

Now the use of "militant/rsl" is problematic. It's not common usage, so its introduction raises questions. What point is being made here? The Militant members were expelled for being members of the Militant, not in relation to the RSL. The article states clearly the origins of the Militant in the RSL, so it is not revealing something that is not known. Why is this usage favoured? The issues introduced by this usage, such as What is the relevance and relationship of the Militant in the 1980s to its origins in the RSL? are not dealt with.

I think what 81.1.67.237 should do is discuss these things clearly rather than try to express them in the term "militant/rsl". Otherwise, it appears as a form of bias against the Militant.

Finally, the assertion by 81.1.67.237, which I've not removed, that the Liverpool Shop Stewards Committee was "controlled" by the Militant, if it is true, needs first of all some kind of reference.

But also it raises the question of what "controlled" can mean in this context. It implies that the committee merely acted under instructions from the Militant in some way. Is this true? Did the committee take votes? Were they open votes? Was there open discussion of questions? A study of the question will I think reveal that this was the case. Then what does "controlled" mean, and is it an appropriate word? All these points need to be made clear in this article, as they are still an issue today.

There is much to do to make this article a referenced, npov one, which gives the reader a flavour of what so took up so many column inches of newsprint and editorials of both the "gutter" press and the "quality" press, but it can be done. Andysoh 12:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this: good edits, and good points. The Joint Shop Stewards Committee was certainly under the political control of Militant: that does not mean that there were not votes, only that the outcomes of votes was determined by Militant. --Duncan 14:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Duncan, thanks for that.


 * I think when one looks into this more closely, it's very interesting and quite contrary to the impressions one might originally pick up. I'm sure you are very familiar with the details.


 * I think the term you use, "political control" is much better. We need more referenced explanation to cut across the fictions that have been maintained, explanations such as from the Liverpool book by Peter Taaffe and Tony Mulhearn. (Kinnock did nothing to explain the tactics of Liverpool City Council. He didn't even say, in his famous speech - "although by the way, the redundancy notices are supposed only to be a tactic, and not to be implemented, but I don't believe it and I am against this supposed tactic." Why not? )


 * I don't think there was a majority of actual paid up members of the Militant in this very large shop stewards body, not by a long shot. And if the militant had proposed something against the interests of the Shop stewards, it could easily have been voted down.


 * So I wonder whether even to say that the vote was "determined" by Militant is problematic. (I guess you are talking in the vernacular, and not proposing that it be put like that on the article itself.) The same of course applies to the council itself.


 * (addition) In fact it appears that the shop stewards committee, comprised of at least 99 members of both rightwing, Communist party, and left wing members, did narrowly vote down the mistaken tactic of redundancy notices "after a long and bitter debate" - [Liverpool, A city that dared to fight cf ch On the brink p282] on 7 September 1985, by 51 votes to 48.


 * But of course the whole point is that it is implied in the edit I criticised that the Militant has some kind of absolute power - whereas in fact (and this is something that must be demonstrated in facts and figures) the power it had was by consent through the fact that its policies were those that everyone supported. And that consent followed only so long as it continued to put forward tactics which, through disucssion and debate, won the support of the stewards and the councillors (policies usually developed in the course of discussions with those same people).
 * Anyway, these thoughts serve as an indication of some themes that could be worked up. Thanks for
 * Andysoh 16:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Andy. Indeed, my form of words does not fit in the article. We can certainly say that Militant had hegemony, and could. I was in Manchester in time, and was around Militant then: my best friend was a full-timer. I was busy reading PoE and I closely followed events there. I was very happy to have met Hatton. My perception is that the comrades were very hands on: comrades would mobilise to attend events, including the JSSC. Things would be caucussed. It was not easy to be opposed to the tendency, even for other left tendencies. Many choices were decided in advance. It's pretty much this way in many organisations, including inside the tendency. That's not a scandal. But it is the case the tendency used its hegemony in the JSSC to pressure the Labour group. Let me say a little more here: we are not talking about the Maoist mass line, in which the tendency presented itself as the expression of the masses. The tendency was consciously leading and forming, not just reflecting consensus. --Duncan 22:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Duncan. I agree, we must not bend the stick too far the other way. Yes, the overwhelming backing for the policy of, for instance, an illegal budget was won through discussion, to a level of involvement never seen before, both in the JSSC and the District Labour Party, and not (as was often suggested) through bullying and intimidation, and not through a kind of consensus politics where everyone pitches in "reflecting consensus" as you put it, but through, as you say, conscious leadership. It appeared like a steamroller to those fundamentally opposed, but only because strenous efforts were made to get unanimity as far as possible.


 * Of course, as you know, it all started to fall apart, as Hatton correctly points out in his autobiography, because of the "don't set a rate" policy of the other councils, which slowly crumbled in the worst kind of demoralising way.


 * I think its relevant to have a line or two on what the Marxist position on working within the Labour Party was historically, e.g. Lenin's position in 1920, and set up here the dynamic between the leadership and the rank and file, to set in context this supposedly dastardly "party within a party" tactic of the Militant.


 * Because this exposes another side to the POV that "after all, the Militant was an illegitimate part of the Labour Party to begin with". The POV that the Labour Party was infiltrated from above, not from below, (e.g. as expressed in material in the Militant) is a legitimate point to make, as long as it is clear that it is the Militant's POV. I'd have to dig up some references sometime.


 * So if no one objects, I think it is relevant to discuss the question of a party within a party historically vis-a-vis the Militant. The Entrism article is another place it could go, but the point is that the Labour Party was a special case, since it originally was precisely a collection of affiliates around the trade union base. So it's probably better to have a brief reference there and point to the Militant Tendency article to develop the point.
 * Andysoh 23:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

list of 'Party members expelled'
I'm not sure of the value of this list.

To my understanding, the Labour Party was, since its inception, full of rather unassuming ordinary working class people who did the donkey work of the party (whether Militant or not), and this listing seems in some way out of character, even to diminish their contribution, whether or not they were expelled or tore up their party card, and whether or not they were Militant supporters (say for instance, in the cases of those many who stood against expulsions, for instance.)

But what do others think?Andysoh 01:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * On the one hand it is, honestly, not too interesting. On the other hand, some of the Socialist Appeal folk would claim that the actual number of expellees is important. In their opinion, the CWI leaders over-stated the impact of the explusions. The number of expelled people was neither mimimal nor total. --Duncan 08:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a good point. Some thoughts.
 * Could or should such a list be used to tacitly make such a point?
 * If it is worth making, I think this could be spelled out in the body of the article.
 * I'll look to see if it is raised in the open turn debate, and see what both sides say.
 * Perhaps if we can give a figure both sides agree on, and present the arguments you indicate from both sides, we can remove the list, which I think is not very professional looking, not entirely fitting for an encylcopedia, or wikipedia, if one can summarise the number expelled.
 * Actually I doubt there would be any dispute about the number expelled. (was it 200 plus?)
 * The question will lie in the interpretation of that same figure, whether it is relevant or not, etc. Andysoh 19:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I think it was around 200 plus, out of a Tendency of around 8000 plus, which of course makes the amount quite interesting in a political argument. Also think it's quite fair to mention that on Wikipedia to give an idea of the expulsions and the strenght of Militant at that time. 80.197.1.72 00:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've made an attempt at this. I was conscious of the wiki undue weight policy, but although the Minority only got 7% of the 1991 October special conference vote, it seemed to me entirely reasonable, in addition to links to both sets of documents produced during the discussion period in 1991, to include a paragraph and a quote from the most often repeated and prominent minority arguments, including the views mentioned above, insofar as I was able to do so.
 * Whilst there was ten times the support for the Majority viewpoint at the special conference, I would argue that since the debate involved the whole Militant Tendency, it is sufficient, I think, to have one paragraph for the Minority against two paragraphs for the Majority, one of which is a quote inset. Whilst this is only a 1:2 relationship, not a 1:10 relationship, the question is not one of maths but a weight, and if the majority argument follows the Minority one, both sides, if not satisfied, should at least feel that their views have had an outing.
 * The other point is not to unduely weight this entire section against the others, by repeating the entire debate.
 * I've not removed the list of expelled, but I feel that the point it was perhaps there to make has been made explicitly in the text.
 * Andysoh 14:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll remove the list in a week or two unless there's any further discussion Andysoh 18:33, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Militant or Militant tendency?
I have tried to use the former where the reference is clearly to the newspaper and the second to the organisation. Comments on the history of the Labour governments in the 1960s and 1970s are not neutral in WP terms and I have removed them; they put forward a 'line' which is clearly that of the organisation being discussed. I have also tried to substitute "Trotskyist" for "Marxist" in several cases where this seems like obfuscation. Peevishness over use of the 'T' word is curious when Militant is identified as drawing on the thought of Lenin and Trotsky at several points in the article. Philip Cross 23:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Philip, good edits.


 * Just to satisfy your curiosity about the "use of the 'T' word", -- Philip and I are refering to 'Trotsky' here --, here the Militant newspaper and the Militant Tendency always prefered to use the term Marxist. Asd you know, the strap under the Militant logo for a long period of time said the "Marxist voice for Labour and Youth", whilst on its pages it regularly refered to, explained and supported the thought of Lenin and Trotsky in the way you identify, i.e. in relation to specific policies, whcih they carefully explained.


 * I think the reason for the distinction was that at that time (I think much less so now) groups most clearly identified at Trotskyists were the SWP and the Workers Revolutionary Party, both of whom were outside the Labour Party, and tended to be treated with a degreee of contempt, I suspect, at least amongst the more proletarian element of the Labour Party and the working class in general. Perhaps it was for this reason that the Militant did not want to be wrongly characterised by using the term Trostkyist without context, in the same way as that they (and many others) would term themselves socialists rather than communists, so as not to be associated with Stalinism.


 * I guess I tended to reflect that in my edits, using the same care with terms that were used by the Militant, so as not to associate the Militant with other quite different trends in the mind of the passing reader. I suppose this is not really an issue now, although people unfamiliar with the whole trotskyist thing might understand the term Marxist more easily, and be in the right ball park in most instances.


 * Don't forget, also, that Militant was widely regarded as a reformist organisation, and not at all Trotskyist, probably by the vast majority of those who called themselves "Trotskyists" in Britain (e.g the SWP, the WRP and the IMG), and I believe there are plenty of people who would dispute it to this day - whereas no-one would dispute "Marxist". Perhaps that is something to think about.


 * As you probably know, there is a similar discussion, in Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, by Engels in the English preface of 1888, saying how when the manifesto was originally published, the term 'socialism' was associated with wimpy liberals, and Communists were more proletarian revolutionists, so "we could not have called it the socialist manifesto".


 * Do you think that Marxist and Trotskyist are mutually exclusive terms? I had always thought that Trotskyism is just a coherent trend of Marxist thought and action (with lots of huge and some very wild variations in application).

Andysoh 23:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Changed to lower case 't' in response to a footnote (p2) in the Crick (1986) volume where he refers to the group using the lower case 't' internally. Suitably humbled, I changed the usage here. Finally got around to locating my copy even if it is 20 years out of date! Philip Cross 11:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Came here thinking it should be Militant Tendency. Could the (unusual) capitalisation be mentioned in the article? There is still Category:Militant Tendency. -- roundhouse 14:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think perhaps it would be better with a capital T. It looks odd otherwise, because it is not common usage, and not the usage of the Militant either.
 * I'm not sure you will find "Militant tendency" in internal documents, because the Militant didn't refer to itself directly in internal documents in case, of course, they came into the hands of the Labour "bureaucracy" providing them with an opportunity to move against the Militant.
 * So you wouldn't find either "Militant Tendency" or "Militant tendency" in internal documents.
 * For instance, see the internal documents at where the reference is to the "Marxist tendency", or just 'the tendency'. Alternative use elsewhere was 'the Marxists'. The 'Militant Tendency', seems to have arisen as it were spontaneously, probably in media usage, since the Militant newspaper represented a tendency (whether organised or not) within the labour movement. In due course, (despite assertions to the contrary one can occassinally find elsewhere on wikipedia), the name 'Militant' supplanted the name "RSL" which dropped out of use.
 * What does Crick say? I wonder if either Philip has misunderstood what Crick was saying or has been misled by Crick? Crick would be correct to say that the Militant used 'tendency' with a lower case t, but perhaps he omitted to add that it didn't use the term 'Militant tendency' as such, in its internal documents?
 * But it was publicly refered to in the press as the Militant Tendency. One can give endless examples, and I don't see the Militant objecting anywhere to this as the proper use.
 * So far as I can see, in its open publications, such as the 'Rise of Militant', the organisation is always refered to as the Militant.
 * I tend to think Tendency is a tag that was added by the media, and those who adopted the media obsession in the Labour Party leadership. For the members in the Labour Party there were just lots of "tendencies".
 * Incidentally, is Crick considered a good enough source form a wiki point of view to quote his point that the Militant was the fifth strongest political group/organisation/party in Britain? I don't have the book to hand, don't know the exact quote, and I know its full of weasel words, etcwhich possibly may have misled Philip above, (a hatchet job, the Militant would have said) but Crick is a recognised journalist, I think.
 * As you know, it is now refered to as the Militant Tendency in Socialist Party literature.
 * Andysoh 19:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it was very rare for people around Militant to use the phrase "Militant tendency" in speech or in writing. As a bit of a pun, perhaps, people might have talked about building up a militant tendency. But the idea always was that the current was a movement around a paper: ideas, not a tendency. Militant would not have wanted to waste time on how the media termed it: it's didn't have trademarks or a brand book. And it worked for the media to suggest an organisation within an organisation, rather than a paper. There's a good chance the term was first coined by a witch-hunter in the Labour party and useage passed to the media from there. However, it became so widespread, that one can't really say it's any more POV than "Trostkyist", which was also coined first by opponents and only later became a generic term. --Duncan 19:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Duncan,
 * I understand you are saying, Go back to Militant (I don't know whether italicised, as Taaffe uses it in the 'Rise of Militant', or not), and drop 'tendency' with or without a capital "T".
 * I think that is the best usage, whilst the term 'Militant Tendency', with a capital "T" has to be the usage in certain cases, such as the title of the article, simply because that is the most common public use.
 * Incidentally, to back up your insight, Derek Hatton's autobiography (ghost written or not) uses only the term Militant, so far as I can see.
 * Andysoh 19:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Andy. It's tricky. We need to be able to make a distinction between Militant as a newspaper and 'the Militant' as a group. The word tendency does, to me, seem to have some POV associations, but clarify has to also be a factor. We can't carry on the charade that Militant was a just a paper with an editorial board: it clearly was an organisation. I would prefer to say 'group' or 'organisation' than say tendency, and I would suggest putting the pacge back on Militant (Britain). --Duncan 23:17, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Duncan. Militant (Britain) sounds good. I'm not that bothered, would prefer Militant Tendency, but would go with you if you feel at all strongly about it. I can't even explain why, except to say that its common media usage. What justifications were given for changing it to Militant Tendency? If none, that is clearly problematic, since it suggests a POV that could not easily be defended. You're right, the Militant called itself the Militant, and that's perhaps the most importnat thing for wikipedia - I don't know how that goes.


 * I must admit, the POV associations with tendency passed me by. I thought it was common terminology in the Labour Party, hence in my original edits I wrote of the Tribune tendency (lower case T) but perhaps correctly Philip took it out. I don't think tendency implies a organsiation which stood outside the legitimate Labour Party 'broad church' conception. But perhaps your point is that if it has a capital "T" it does. I don't know. Incidentally I think the article once or twice mistakes elements within the labour Party leadership for "the Labour Party", when it is evident from their failure to get their opposition to the Militant through the party structures that they represent right wing views without much support within the party.
 * Andysoh 19:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

This is what Crick says, on the note on page two of both the 1984 and 1986 edition of his books on Militant:
 * "The political organisation associated with the newspaper Militant was originally called the revolutionary Socialist league (RSL). Indeed, the RSL preceded Militant itself by nine years. The editors of Militant have always publicly denied the existence of the RSL, and nowadays the name has largely fallen into disuse inside the organisation.
 * Many journalists refer to the organisation as 'Militant tendency' (with a capital 'T' and often without the definite article.) This is wrong. Although Militant does refer to itself, internally and externally, as 'the tendency', or 'our tendency', this term is used only in the same way that internally it occasionally calls itself a 'group' [in the 60's and 70's - Andy] or an 'organisation'. The word 'tendency' is never given a capital 'T'. Throughout the book I will refer to the organisation simply as Militant, or as the Militant tendency (without a capital 'T') or, in the early stages, as the Revolutionary Socialist League. I shall use Militant, in italics, when referring to the tendency's newspaper." (Crick, the March of Militant, p2 note)

In reality Crick uses the first of these options, simply 'Militant', most of the time, (with the tendency really as an alternative for reasons of style, e.g., to stop repetition) and this was the original usage in this article.


 * I'd like to propose that we change the title of the article back to Militant (Britain) as Duncan suggests, and follow Crick's usage in the article - generally Militant, with some use of Militant tendency.

In terms of the article, Crick’s detailed exposition occasionally shows that those elements who wanted to act against the Militant, right up until 1983, were prevented both at conference and on the NEC because it was not the Labour Party's wish, and that far from representing the Labour Party, those who wanted to expel the Militant were seen as acting against the Labour Party's interest by the bulk of the membership, until the mid 1980s. Sometimes Crick makes this clear, such as on page 186 (March of Militant, 1986), where he says that Underhill, now Lord Underhill "came under intense pressure from right wing MPs and journalists" to make public his dossier on the Militant, which resulted in the new 1980 Underhill dossier. A good few of these same right wing MPs left in one year's time for the SDP and split the Labour vote for two general elections, a point missing from this article but made pertinent in Crick, who makes clear that three of the four Liverpool Labour MPs deserted for the SDP in 1981. (e.g. on the Photo credit in the centre pages.) Andysoh 09:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It's high time the title was changed. It was never called the Militant tendency. That was a creation of either the media or the Labour Party. Guv2006 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:30, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

sources?
I've temporarily removed the following from the section on Neil Kinnock:

and later
 * 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.
 * 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.

I could not trace a source for the first two interesting and contrasting assertions about the 90-day notices, and since these are highly controversial issues (like most of this stuff) I think they need sourcing. I think they might strictly be categorised as original research, unless there's a record of these things kept somewhere (by the council or the government?), or one of the 90-day notices in a private or public collection somewhere, which can be referenced.

The second extract tells us what Kinnock "believed" and what he "felt". Again these sentiments may be true, although the first sentance contains a few sweeping generalisations, but they may be conjecture. They need sourcing. In the meantime, the article describes what he did and what he said, which tells us a lot about what he believed and felt. Andysoh 22:02, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

A problem exists in the statement: 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. Not only is this unsourced but it is incorrect. The reason being that the idea that Labour had become a wholly capitalist party became a hallmark of the Socialist Party several years later. At the time of the Open Turn it was seen by Militant as a tactical move as is borne out by the discussion of the debate later in the page: In the majority document For The Scottish Turn: Against Dogmatic Methods In Thought And Action the majority explicitly argued against that position: The Majority is in no way abandoning a long-term orientation towards the Labour Party, which remains the traditional party of the working class in Britain. The idea that Labour had become wholly capitalist was first raised in the mid-1990s but I don't have a reference for when it was formally adopted. Can anyone help?

The 'Kinnock Principle'
Despite clearly receiving attention from both sides of the argument, the article seems to fail to get to the historical nub of the matter of how the Labour Party leadership effectively put an end to Militant-type involvement in the Party, seemingly once and for all. Neil Kinnock invoked a principle whereby those who regularly attend local meetings, and thereby achieve office, should not, thereby, be allowed to dominate it against the wishes of the (often absent) majority. The success of this principle could well be attributed to the fact that is not demonstrably of the right or left, as members of both factions have problems - sometimes, but not always, of different kinds - in achieving regular attendance, or even desiring it (e.g., disabled access). If the 'Kinnock Principle' is a sound one, it has not, for some reason, been applied universally outside of (nor indeed within) the British Labour Party, nor with the rigour which was used there to oust Militant (e.g., in the conduct of religious bodies, or the the discrepancy between Labour Government conduct and most Party members' views).


 * AndySoh comments:
 * Those are very interesting comments. I had not heard of the 'Kinnock principle' and have not been able to derive its source, or, for that matter, its exact meaning. From your description, it seems to be refering to the introduction of postal ballots of all the membership for various issues and elections.
 * If I have surmised correctly, it is quite correct that this was cited both on the left and the right for shifting the party to the right, and its ommission should perhaps be corrected, once we can determine when these moves were intoduced. The right argued that meetings were dominated by small cliques of left-wingers that were unrepresentative of the party as a whole, and the left argued that by placing important votes in the hands of members who were not attending meetings, Kinnock hoped that members whose main source of information was the right-wing dominated media, might be swayed to vote for candidates and policies that those active in the branches would not.
 * Either way, it was one of many changes in the Labour Party that marked the end for left wing influence, whether Bennite, Tribunite, Militant, or any of the many other groups that, at the turn of the 1980s, sold their papers and argued about socialism of various sorts within the Labour Party branches.
 * Andysoh 18:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I must confess that the coining of the phrase 'Kinnock Principle' is my own. Whether this is in breach of Wikipedia rules doesn't really interest me. The fact is that, in Neil Kinnock's opposition to Militant, there was much nonsense, bluster and hot air. But the one thing that emerged from it all to win the argument effectively, and stand the test of time, was the principle referred to. The fact that it was applied unevenly, i.e., against Militant but not against similar institutional abuses by the right, is now history. Unsigned comment


 * If this doesn't interest you, then please stop editing wikipedia until you acquaint yourself the what wikipedia is not. It is not a place for original research, such as the coining of concepts. --Duncan 09:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


 * If the rule you refer to (which, as I understand it, comes direct from Wikipedia's founder) isn't as stupid as it appears to me, please explain why the coining of a phrase, for clarity, and so as to conform to the requirement for titular brevity, is any more illegitimate than anything else on a Talk page?
 * What concerns me more, at this moment in time, as a social and linguistic historian, while the protagonists are still alive, is the question of establishing whether the principle in question did indeed proceed from Neil Kinnock himself, or from someone else(?).


 * I want to wind down this discussion with you until you take the time to acquaint yourself a little more with our rules, and until you get the chance to register as a user. First things first after all. The task of talk pages is to develop material for inclusion in articles. If you have coined this phrase yourself, as you claim, then it's original research, which Wikipedia doesn't use. I realise that it's a topic of some interest to you, not unreasonably, but it's just not part of our work here. --Duncan 14:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

1975 - 1980 expulsion attempts
J Morrisions clarifications have been very helpful, but I just want to make two changes.

Most importantly, I don't think it is accurate to say that "the leadership of the Labour Party repeatedly attempted to expel the Militant supporters" in the years 1975 - 1980.

We should be clear that between 1975 and 1980, as Michael Crick makes clear - the two attempted "witchhunts" (as they were termed) against the Militant had very little support in the Labour Party.

Crick explains - we do not go into the details in this wiki article - that Lord Underhill found that his 1975 report into the Militant would not even be published by the Labour Party, let alone debated, and that although the last thing on his mind was that it should reach the press - this is how Crick puts it - nevertheless, it somehow got into press hands. The wiki article reports the consequences.

The leadership of the Labour Party was the National Executive Committee at this time - it was before this body, on these questions, that such matters lay in those days, 1975 - 1980.

In addition, one could dispute "repeatedly" - why not "sporadically", or perhaps even more accurately, "twice"? This has to be rendered in to a NPOV form.

It is for this reason that we say that "elements" within the Labour Party leadership attempted to expel the Militant - it is an accurate expression.

Secondly, the clarification about which parties the Militant was not as big as is vey important today, but I have put it in the references with the rest of the explanation of what Crick was saying (he was exposing the Militant as a party, which it denied, and was seen as highly critical of the Militant). This leaves the introduction a little less cluttered with explanations.

Finally, there is some debate as whether to wikify dates, but this article does not, and to remain within the style of the article, I have unwikified the dates. My personal opinion is that links should be relelvent, and a 2007 type link just pulls up dates of the same year. Andysoh 00:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

POV
This article is so POV it's shocking. A large number of the references are from their own publications, no criticism, even implicit, is included, and everything is reported from their viewpoint. It really is terrible, it could have been lifted directly from their website. Larklight (talk) 19:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Larklight, of the references cited and quoted in the article 40 are from publications associated with the Militant tendency while 95 are from other publications including the mainstream press and extensive quotes from Michael Cricks 'expose' of the Militant tendency. I don't think your POV tag is justified. MG454 (talk) 10:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * To have over 40 references from one source is dubeous enough, regardless of his POV- and his page indicates labour loyalties, so regardless of his stance on MT, over-reliance on him is going to cause bias. A page where over 80 of the references are MT-linked, or the work of a single Labour-supporting man, is obveously in trouble, even if Crick's was personally against MT.
 * Even if the references where in order, the page is still massively POV, so that tag definityl deserves to stay. Larklight (talk) 11:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Larklight, your contribution above doesn't make any sense! The majority of the citations are Militant-tendency linked in the sense that they are about the Militant tendency which is wholly correct for an entry about the Militant tendency. Also, when you state 'his POV' and 'his page' in relation to the 40 Militant-related publications that are quoted you seem to be confusing a tendency of 10,000 with one person! I haven't had the time to look through all of the changes that you have made to this page but an initial inspection suggests that your ammendments have made the entry less accurate rather than clarifying any POV issues. For instance, on the Labour Party you have ammended the entry to state that the Militant left labour because it 'was now too far right'. This is a wholly unscientific claim and not in tune with what the Militant argued; not simply that Labour had moved to the right but that the class character of the party had fundamentally changed. I do not think that the POV tag deserves to stay on this entry. Further than that, I do not believe that you have a thorough understanding of the entry that you are attempting to edit. MG454 (talk)


 * The 40 references are Crick's- an article should not be so reliant on one source.
 * On the militant references, organisations should not be references about themselves: respectable newspapers, academic publications, and the like, are much better.
 * Do you not think 'moved too far to the right' is a reasonable generalisation? Class struggle is pretty isomorphic with the hard-left policies they espoused, I think it's pretty clear that moving towards the centre would mean abandoning this.
 * Finally, I think an article is clearly POV when it contains the lyrical line, 'the wars it opposed came and went'. Any article so full of references from the organisation, and from one writer, is bound to have problems. Larklight (talk) 19:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

'before the rise of entrepeneurship [sic] in the '80s'
Had to remove this phrase, but also removed the phrase that provoked it.

The original claim was that monopolisation has increased over the decades. This is factually accurate but could be mistaken as a point of view. the alternative claim was made, as per Conservative Party claims during the 1980s, that entrepreneurship had increased. There was an increase in small businesses, due to many incentives, but at the same time monopolisation increased.

Careful research of any study on monopolisation in the UK (as elsehwere) will show you that the increase in monopolisation over the last century was not halted due to “the rise of entrepeneurship [spelt ‘entrepreneurship’] in the '80s,” as implied. This is a POV that is not backed up by fact. In fact it increased. (just one example - agrochemicals - in the 1980s twenty firms controlled 90% of global production, but by the late 1990s just ten controlled the same proportion.)

However, this is not the place to argue about statistics, and both the claim about the increasing monopolisation in the original article and the conservative party POV about “the rise of entrepeneurship in the '80s” have both been removed. Andysoh (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

My edits, reverts, etc.
Ok, Andysoh reverted a lot of my edits, so let's discuss them here.


 * Andysoh: "its philosophy directly descended from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. "

As far as I can see, this is nothing but POV. To claim that theirs is the 'pure' philosophy, and that implicitly all others are deviations, would need loads of serious philosophical references at the least: at worst, this is such a debatable sentence that Wikipedia should not take a stance on it (or if it must, say they claim, or Michael Crick claims). More's the point, the fact that they're marxist is already mentioned.

And it definitely doesn’t constitute an important reference, given how often his book is used as a reference!


 * Larks: "which presented a sereous threat to the Labour Partyu,"

Apart from the spelling, what was POV about this? It's referenced to a quality newspaper, and certainly not my POV.


 * Andysoh: The wage demands which the Militant tendency made in its pages changed with the cost of living, the wars it opposed came and went, and the number of monopolies to be nationalised reduced over time.

This line basically says 'their policies changed', which I think is obvious, and doesn't warrant mention in any other article. Moreover, it does so in a POV manner, so I don't see any advantage in its inclusion.

On the Fabien society: technically they're the right wing of the labour party, but I think it's more sensible to call them moderate, especially when contrasted with the Government of the time.

On the budgets: while your version is probably better than mine, I think it reads a bit strangely. Could we change


 * Andysoh: On June 14 1985 Liverpool Council passed an illegal budget, in which spending exceeded income, demanding the deficit be made up by the government, despite the danger of bankruptcy when the money ran out.

to


 * On June 14 1985 Liverpool Council passed an illegal budget, in which spending exceeded income, demanding the deficit be made up by the government, despite the danger of bankrupting the council.

please? The end of your version was a bit tautologous, and doesn't explain who was at risk of bankruptcy. Larklight (talk) 20:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Interesting points, Larklight. Here's my thoughts and what I’ve done in the light of your points:


 * Just to say firstly: the article is the result of the efforts and collaboration of a number of editors over the years. You misjudged that I think.


 * Long time editors like Philip Cross have been through this article line by line.
 * After the changes they made, or requested, the article was subsequently rated B class, which is pretty good, as you will see if you click through to the quality scale (link at top of this page).
 * The quality scale for B rated articles begins: "The article is mostly complete and without major issues". That's the assessment of wikipedia.
 * Michael Crick is a well known broadcaster and journalist (look out for him on TV) whose critical expose of Militant caused a stir at the time. At the same time, his books are well researched and authoritative.
 * So I'm not sure that one can say "This article is so POV it's shocking".
 * It's not an important enough subject to become A rated, I think, incidentally, no matter what we do.


 * Now to your points:
 * 1. "Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky"
 * In brief:
 * Unfortunately such a change won’t stick, that’s my experience
 * I didn’t particularly want that appellation, although not at all for the reasons you say, which I disagree with.
 * What happened was that people were posting "Leninist" or "Trotskyist" here, arguing that it was shocking that the article did not specify that the Militant was Leninist, or that it was Trotskyist.
 * Then someone else would say, Hey, that's wrong, they aren't Trotskyist, and so it went on, etc.
 * Using Michael Crick's description finally settled this issue. It is authoritative and backed up by evidence he gives. Consensus reached.
 * It makes no “claim that theirs is the 'pure' philosophy, and that implicitly all others are deviations”, as you suggest, and no wiki editor, and certainly not Michael Crick, intended to imply that the Militant are the sole inheritors of these ideas.


 * Edit: I've taken out the "directly". It is Crick's word, but it might be what makes you feel conveys a sense of ownership or exclusivity.


 * 2. "which presented a sereous threat to the Labour Partyu"


 * Sorry, don’t agree. This was not the view of the majority of the Labour Party the majority of the time, including the views expressed explicitly in its publications, its various tendencies, and its leaders such as Michael Foot and Ron Hayward. These are all points of view, pure and simple.


 * More info on this:
 * Labour's own monthly magazine, the New Socialist (September-October 1982) carried an editorial denounced the 'witch-hunt' against the Militant tendency.
 * Of course, that point of view changed in the Labour Party.
 * But as I and others have had to repeatedly make clear when changes of this nature have been made, the opinion that the Militant was damaging to the Labour Party is an opinion, a point of view.
 * Wikipedia policy in political articles is not to take the prevailing viewpoint, whether expressed in the media or by politicians or whatever, as “fact”. The example is usually given of Nelson Mandela being formerly called a terrorist in the media all the way around the world.
 * Crick fully backs this up regarding the diverging views in the Labour Party specifically. We have attempted to unscramble fact and fiction in this article. The question of what people in the country thought is also dealt with purely through facts of electoral successes, etc., without any opinions expressed.


 * 3 “The wage demands which the Militant tendency made in its pages changed with the cost of living, the wars it opposed came and went, and the number of monopolies to be nationalised reduced over time.”


 * I agree, good point, lapses into journalism. Not that anyone argued that its policies changed much, of course. Rather the opposite! They were the same policies, easily identifiable (this is the point) but circumstances changed.
 * Keep in mind this is a summary. Let’s try this, and see if any of the editors object to this:


 * Among the distinguishing features of the Militant tendency’s policies were the demand for a minimum wage for all workers and an opposition to war. The demand which became the watchword for the Militant tendency in the Labour Party was its demand for the nationalisation of the “commanding heights of the economy".


 * 4. “Fabians”. OK, let’s ditch the attempt to label this group.


 * More on this:
 * This is problematic either way. The Fabians describe themselves as left of centre, not moderate.
 * Yet in attempting to ditch the socialist clause they could with some justification be seen as on the right and leading the way to the turn to the right of the Labour Party later on. But we can’t go into that, so let’s drop it.
 * Moderate is a charged term, a self-description of anyone wanting to appear moderate, or else it is a media description where – it could be argued – the media wants a group to be seen as moderate. The description of a “moderate” trade union leader for instance, verses some “extremist” opponent, is not accepted by many in the trade union movement.
 * It’s a point of view. Let the facts speak for themselves.


 * 5. On the budgets I’ll make the change you suggest.Andysoh (talk) 21:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Afghanistan 1979 in the International outlook section
Very interesting contibution, although lacking context, points up an important question.

Firstly, of course, we must not forget that the Afghanistan Communist Party had seized power in Afghanistan in the 1978 in Kabul, but typically its remit did not extend very far. The US began backing the Taliban's forebears militarily and financially to overrun the country. (Enter Bin Laden stage right.) In other words, the US was attempting to overrun a sympathetic government on the borders of the USSR and the Russian tanks rolled in to prevent it. Of course we can't go into that here.

The Militant condemned both sides to this game, but Grant and Woods went a little further. They didn't support the invastion, but took the position reflected in the quote inserted here.

The original quote (which I corrected) was taken out of context and thus misrepresents this question, but disagreements about the position of Grant/Woods over the USSR occupation of Afghanistan, according to the document on the Collapse of Stalinism written in 1990, (see marxist.net) were the "first seeds" of the split between the Woods-Grant minority and the majority.

I think this needs to considered or mentioned in the The 'Open Turn' section, as an important indication of the seeds of the split, but with references to back up these assertions. I'll see what I can dig up. Andysoh (talk) 11:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Duncan, much improved. I have dug up the issue of Militant from which the quote comes, (see edit) and - no suprises - it clearly expresses the Militant's opposition to the invasion. But otherwise the quote is accurate. "To call now for the withdrawal of Russian troops would be to call for the victory of reaction in its cruelist and most barbarous form." Ted Grant wrote a three page aricle on 18 Jan 1980. It appears that Woods and Grant maintained their apparent misreading of the situation even in 1988 (world perspectives document) after the withdrawal of Russian troops and only months before the collapse of Stalinism began in earnest. By this time it appears that there was considerable disquiet in what became the leaders of the majority over this question.Andysoh (talk) 22:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agreed with that view myself at the time. ;-) --Duncan (talk) 07:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Liverpool City Councillors 1987
Wasn't it 47 councillors that were expelled, and not 49? The reference provided states that is was 47. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.168.28.14 (talk) 12:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * 49 were initially subject to surcharge, but two died during the process. Note not all of the 47 were sitting as councillors at the time they were finally surcharged in 1987. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I've updated the intro and note attached Andysoh (talk) 13:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Large-scale deletions restored
Edits always end up improving the article, but wiki etiquette prefers editors to discuss deletions here first.

Before deleting whole paragraphs it is always far better if there is some discussion, allowing plenty of time for reflection. This is particularly the case with articles that have been the work of a number of editors and, as in this case, have already been classified and rated as mostly complete without major issue. (See a previous talk section and top of this webpage.)

Some material has been deleted with the comment that it was unreferenced, when it was referenced, and described as POV when it is not - in the assessment of wikipedians it is without major issues. Major deletions should therefore be avoided where possible, I think.

Improvements can undoubtedly be made, although I don't know whether we can make it an A class article. Andysoh (talk) 10:13, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

swapped paras
I wondered whether it might be more relevent to the new reader who wants to find out about the Militant tendency to read what it stood for first. So I moved the Founding policies section to the top, with the founding members, details of their affiliations, credentials, etc, below.

This shows, perhaps, more clearly the underlying reason why the Militant came up against the Labour Party right wing - if its policies had been very dull and ineffective, 40 more Trotskyists in the Labour Party would hardly have raised an eyebrow.

Andysoh (talk) 12:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

change to first para
I'm not sure the change to the first para is an improvment

After much debate the first para was settled on defining the Militant tendency according to its most persistent critic, Michael Crick, who descibed its philosophy as descending from Marx Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.

This has been changed to "It described its politics as descended from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky."

Whether the Militant did so or not, this makes the first para less objectively based, and more based merely on what the militant said of itself. In addition, the reference actually defends the earlier wording.

I think the first version is slightly better for an encyclopeadia article, but both are true and wondered what other editors thought. Andysoh (talk) 14:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Open Turn
Please merge Militant tendency and Peter Taaffe and put the result into the Open Turn (politics) page, replacing the merged sections with appropriate summaries, per Summary style. - Altenmann >t 02:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, it seems too minor to me at first glance - is the new page intended to be worthwhile? e.g. significantly more than a stub? Would involve some careful work. I mean, if there were already existing a full treatment of the issue, then the merge would be meaningful, it seems to me. Andysoh (talk) 21:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * How can is be a stub, if the two sections I mention are quite large texts. My stub is a mere placeho1der. Also, hardly it is "too minor" if it is written long detail in two wikipedia articles, and there is a huge text given as a reference. - Altenmann >t 06:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not at all sure it is warranted. I don't call a few paras huge detail, (assuming some duplication is removed) but rather not significantly more than stub. Have you discussed it with other editors elsewhere? I'd like to see some feedback from others. Let's get some general agreement before doing anything, as per the most fundamental wiki practice. Andysoh (talk) 12:53, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Clause II
Hi, it would be nice if someone put in a brief summary of what clause II entailed. Zargulon (talk) 17:21, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I don't think clause II is notable enough to be in the opening paragraph. It is quite sufficient to state: "In 1982, a Labour Party commission found Militant ineligible for affiliation to the Labour Party."


 * Essentially, the problem with the opening paras is that they don't really establish what the Militant had done to achieve such notoriety that the Labour Party leadership moved against it. Hence your puzzlement. The intro paras tends to emphasize the point of view of the Labour Party, and not show where the Militant was coming from. It is unbalanced.


 * Previously there was an introductory para which could be roughly developed as such:

"In 1972, Labour Party conference passed a Militant tendency resolution which committed the next Labour government to introduce "a socialist plan of production based on public ownership". In 1975, widespread press coverage of the Militant tendency resulted from a Labour Party report of Militant's entrist tactics. Between 1975 and 1980, attempts by Reg Underhill and others within the leadership of the Labour Party to expel the Militant were rejected by the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, which appointed a Militant member to the position of National Youth Organiser in 1976. ". The Militant had become the majority in the youth section in the 1970s, which grew rapidly. Militant's policies were adopted by Liverpool City Council between 1983 and 1987 and confronted the Government. 47 councillors approved a 'deficit budget' and were subsequently were banned and surcharged.[5][6] The conduct of the Liverpool council led Neil Kinnock, Labour's then leader, to denounce Militant at the 1985 Party Conference. In 1982, a Labour Party commission found Militant ineligible for affiliation to the Labour Party.[3] Militant was subsequently proscribed by the Labour Party's NEC in December 1982, and the following year, the five members of the Editorial Board of the Militant newspaper were expelled from the Labour Party. At this point the Militant claimed internally to have about 4,300 members.[4] Further expulsions of Militant activists followed. Two Militant supporting Labour MPs were prevented from being Labour candidates at the 1992 general election.


 * With this para it becomes clear that the Militant had achieved a number of notable things - sufficient for the first para. The support for the Militant among the members and the Labour Party leadership's response. I missed the removal of this information from the introduction and a huge other chunk of material, on the 27 June 2011, all carefully referenced and notable, because the cut was labeled "(cut some unreferenced/POV/non-notable bits)" But 37,843 bytes were removed. Wikipedia etiquette suggests there should have been some discussion of each point's removal - whether each para removed was in fact POV (it was not), whether it was unreferenced (nothing was unreferenced) or whether it was non-notable or in fact appropriate. I think it some compromise could have been reached, but the edit was not well done. the removed text ought to be replaced, really, and discussed through properly. Andysoh (talk) 18:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Founders discussion:
There is some dispute about information regarding founders of the Militant tendency, including first national secretary and first editor, Peter Taaffe. I think, if not all, some should be preserved. Andysoh (talk) 15:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest we take it para by para. One issue is the idea that the Militant is some kind of alien organization parachuted in by people 'from outside' the movement, which attached itself to the labour Party. Yet it turns out that this is not true (and in addition, the Braddocks, the main enemies in the early days, themselves came from a Stalinist tradition, although this latter could be omitted, I guess.) Andysoh (talk) 15:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


 * We have a biographical article on figures like Jimmy Deane, and a piece on Militant's immediate forerunner, the Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1957). Further information about the origins and founders should be used to develop those articles, linked from this article as appropriate. The size of the article at 56k already allowed for an pretty thorough account, and the era thirty years ago when (briefly) Militant had a significant presence with several thousand members, and an impact on the Labour Party, is the most important part. The article cites Militant having only 100 members by 1965. So the detail currently given in this article to the early history is surely undue. Philip Cross (talk) 15:25, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Andysoh, the assertion that Militant was not an "alien organization" to the Labour Party, that Trotskyists had been in it for decades, is made in the article by Eric Heffer and others. I think that is enough, given that it was the minority opinion. Philip Cross (talk) 15:33, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Philip, thanks for getting back to me, and for your diligent attention to the article and related material. I agree that there is an issue with length - we all end up adding to it - but I do think some reference would be in order, with cross reference to those articles. I suggest roughly the following be simply added to the origins section:


 * The founders of the Militant tendency had roots in Labour and Trade Union organisations, especially in the Merseyside area. Jimmy Deane, the first national secretary of the Militant, was originally national secretary of the 'Revolutionary Socialist League' in 1964 when it decided to found the Militant newspaper. Deane was an electrician and shop convenor at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead who joined the Labour Party in 1937 and was one of the pioneers of Trotskyism in Merseyside. 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."  Taaffe, together with Ted Mooney and other founding Militant supporters, participated in an apprentices' strike, leading apprentices in English Electric on Merseyside's East Lancashire Road.


 * I hope you can agree. Can you take a look at my post in the talk section above about the introduction, which seems to me self-serving for the Labour Party, rather than explaining what the Militant did in order to become so notorious? There is always (I am sure you agree) a danger that Labour Party and press propaganda and priorities are unduly represented in the article, appearing to suggest that the Militant was merely a minor irritant on the Labour Party rather than the kind of balance wikipedia is well-known for. BTW, I intend add one sentence to the poll tax section which omits one of Militant's central claims, that this battle removed Thatcher. Obviously it is their opinion, and must be stated as such, but it is notable, and can be referenced to Thatcher's own biography which indicated that it was over the poll tax that she would not budge, and hence was removed. Finally, all the pictures have been removed one by one over the decade presumably by various trolls. We must add them back, I think. Andysoh (talk) 16:32, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


 * You will be aware that Wikipedia prioritises third party sources, which inevitably discriminates against putting forward a point of view sympathetic to organisations like Militant. Editors cannot make a case they favour at all, and are dependent on viable, unaffiliated, source material. As I comment above, the opinions of Eric Heffer, as well as Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner in defence of Militant, are covered in the article, as are Militant's own point of view. As far as deleted photographs are concerned, they were probably removed for copyright reasons rather than by vindictively motivated individuals. Philip Cross (talk) 17:54, 22 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree, Philip, and most of the real refs in the article are from Crick, who is deeply antagonistic but it can't be helped. The Guardian obituary of ted grant is another case in point, full of weasel words. But anyway people learn to take these journalists with a pinch of salt. But as you know, obviously it is important to explain what the relevant political organization or person actually puts forward, rather than just what a newspaper says they put forward, that is the point of the article about the person or organization, and I think this article does this sufficiently, with your help. It is not a question of sympathy, but of objectively stating what that organization claims. That is one reason why the missing context of the workers struggle, removed by Hal I think, makes full comprehension difficult. But then that begs the question of length. Regarding the minority expulsion, there are two claims and no evidence either way - certainly no letter or document or minutes or even a recollection of an actual expulsion proceedings, or an appeal made or attempted at an EC, NC or conference level. Except for the fact that the minority lost their argument at the conference, we only have a bold assertion and nothing more. I therefore prefer we say 'claims' even with the Guardian report, but if you feel that would be unacceptable, I'll not change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andysoh (talk • contribs) 18:18, 22 August 2014‎

change of name of the article 'Militant tendency' to 'Militant (Trotskyist group)'
I think the change of name of the article 'Militant tendency' to 'Militant (Trotskyist group)' is wrong and should be reversed. Why was the change not flagged up here, on the discussion page?

The 'Militant tendency' to 'Militant (Trotskyist group)' is mistaken, because the group is widely known as Militant tendency, and there is at least one other Trotskyist group which calls itself Militant (in the USA).

I think it should be reversed pending a discussion.Andysoh (talk) 10:24, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Editor Philip Cross is in violation of Wp:Own on this article
This article is a load of left-wing propaganda written and managed by an editoe named Philip Cross. Anyone who who had any connection to Liverpool knows this article is bollocks.

Cross could probably make Stalin look like a humanitarian with their editing skills that are on show here. Liverpool was a shit hole in the 80s. Militant revelled in the problems they didn't solve anything.

Orphaned kids for instance... were left to fend for themselves when their parents died because there no social services.Cross is controlling the content on this article to fit their own agenda.

This article is almost a whitewash of what happened on Merseyside.

No personal attacks. Militant connected sources such as the books by Peter Taaffe, hardly an uninvolved witness, are probably overused and could do with substitute citations, or challenge from other published writers. If you can help resolve this problem, both in this article and Militant in Liverpool, you could make a useful contribution to Wikipedia. Not at all sympathetic, but a classic text on the subject, Michael Crick's book is probably cited too much as well, Larklight (above) counted 40 references seven years ago. So far no one has found a way of resolving that issue. Philip Cross (talk) 07:23, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Labour - capitalism's second eleven
The wholesale expulsion of Socialists by the Labour Party is not new. The accusation of "anti-semitism" which seems to mean opposition to the policies of the Israeli government is new. It would seem that Keir Starmer's objective is to show that Labour is a "safe pair of hands" for capitalism by ditching any radical policies. In this context the Socialist Party of England and Wales (formerly Militant) has concluded that a new political force such as the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition initiated by Bob Crow is necessary. On the other hand those expelled by the Labour Party could confront the Labour Party on the electoral plane and seek trade union support. So perhaps Sir Keir might not have it all his own way. Derekmcmillan1951 (talk) 17:19, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Socialist Alternative listed as a sucessor.
Socalist Alternative arose from a split in the Socialist Party in 2019, well after Militant dissolved. It would be easy to just remove Socialist Alternatives name from this page. 92.237.155.25 (talk) 16:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)