Hard Right Express Gloats at “Labour Civil War” as call comes to widen purge to Labour Representation Committee.

Keir Starmer’s Group in the 1980s: the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency.

Labour CIVIL WAR: Starmer to purge party and expel 1,000 members from ‘poisonous’ groups

KEIR Starmer has made plans to expel 1,000 Labour Party members who are considered far left and “poisonous”.

@PaulAFairclough https://t.co/RAEAikVKOq

— Andy Hearn 🟨🟥 (@AndyHearn09) July 18, 2021

These groups have been said to promote communism, claim anti-Semitism allegations are overblown and demand the reinstatement of Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP.

The Labour national executive committee (NEC) meeting next Tuesday is expected to pass the new motion to ban the select groups.

The ban will affect approximately Labour Party 1,000 members who could be “auto-excluded”.

These groups have been said to promote communism, claim anti-Semitism allegations are overblown and demand the reinstatement of Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour MP.

Two of the groups that will be banned are Resist and Labour Against the Witchhunt.

Another group to be proscribed are the communist leaning Socialist Appeal.

It has been reported in the Daily Mirror that anyone found to be a member of any of the four groups will face an automatic expulsion from the Labour Party.

A Party source said: “Under Corbyn, those from the far left fringes with poisonous beliefs and warped world-views were welcomed into the party.

“Keir is right to stamp out anti-Semitism and toxic extremism.”

Call to widen the Purge.

,

….we hope that this is not the limit of current action on antisemitism. Other groups such as the Labour Representation Committee (whose President is John McDonnell MP) played a significant role in mainstreaming anti-Jewish racism and they too should be proscribed. Moreover, Keir Starmer must also address the provocative and inflammatory actions of some of his MPs who continue to promote the anti-Israel extremism that is described in the most recent CST report ‘A Month of Hate. There is still a long way to go and much work to be done.”

LAAS Statement:
“We welcome the Labour Party’s plan to proscribe these four groups, who represent some of the most extreme elements of the antisemitic Hard Left."#LabourAntisemitism @UKLabour @Keir_Starmer
1/2 pic.twitter.com/DfP4ffXwcw

— LAAS (@LabourAgainstAS) July 18, 2021

Socialist Appeal was formed in 1992 and was not threatened with expulsion under Tony Blair or any other previous Labour leader.

Keir Starmer was a leading figure in this small revolutionary Marxist group in the 1980s. Its international main body was, many would consider, far to the left of Socialist Appeal.

Socialist Alternatives was the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT), a formerly Trotskyist Pabloite group based in Paris.^[1]

A small group in the UK it was best known for the Marxist magazine of the same name partially edited by Keir Starmer from 1986 to 1987.^[2] The magazine is believed to have been produced by the Pabloist International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT)^[3] and advertised its events and publications, although one of the authors identified it as being an outgrowth of the Socialist Society connected with Ralph Miliband and Hilary Wainwright.^[4] Paul Mason has called it a “Trotskyite front magazine”^[5] although this is disputed.^[4] The French Troksyite journalist Maurice Najman was also cited as a key supporter.^[4]

Its politics were defined by one of its later authors Andrew Coates as being “aligned to the European ‘alternative’ movements of the time which stood for ecology, feminism and self-management. These were forerunners of later radical green-left groups, Los Indignados, Podemos, the left of Labour and similar currents within social democratic parties.”^[6]

It was described by the left wing magazine Chartist as “the human face of the hard left”.^[7] Peter Hitchens described Socialist Alternative’s “preoccupation with sexual politics and green issues” as presaging the politics of all today’s major British politicians.^[8]

The magazine included articles by Michalis Raptis,^[9][10][11] the leader of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency and the left wing Labour MP Eric Heffer, Peter Tatchell^[6] as well as an interview with Tony Benn.^[12][13] There were also advertisements for Michael Raptis’s “Self Management Lectures”^[14] and IRMT publications.^[15] Keir Starmer wrote articles on the Wapping strike,^[16][17] the 1986 TUC conference,^[18] criticising labour leader Neil Kinnock‘s moves towards the market economy,^[19] a book review of Eric Heffer’s Labour’s future,^[20] Trade Unions and pluralism,^[21] an interview with Tony Benn^[12] and left wing approaches to local government.^[22]

The magazine was still publishing in 1989^[23] and 1994.^[24]

This call for a purge has got completely out of hand and should be strongly opposed by democratic socialists.