A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Small is beautiful?

Only just over 20 years ago Militant was a power in the land. It had 2 Labour MPs, 5000+ members, control of the Labour Party Young Socialists, and control of Liverpool City Council.

It's successor organisation - SPEW (yes they really chose that acronym) is part of the rump Socialist Alliance - the bits of that organisation which didn't follow the SWP into RESPECT.

The Socialist Alliance operates on a slightly smaller scale to Militant. Quite how small is revealed by the NEC minutes (NEC members include such blasts from the past as Dave Nellist and Lesley Mahmood - defeated by the then Labour rightwinger Peter Kilfoyle in the Walton by-election) it helpfully publishes on the internet.

As of 17 Feb this mighty challenger to be the voice of Britain's toiling masses stated: "Membership – 11 members had paid nationally so far for 2007." (despite it being cheaper to join than Labour is at 24 quid a year).

Still, if they go out and do a recruitment drive they might achieve last September's figure, when there were "27 paid up SA members nationally".

If 11 members is true, then 50% of their entire individual membership stand outside Stoke Newington Post Office on a Saturday morning waving collecting buckets (if they get the pitch before the SWP who seem to be late risers).

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The Socialist Alliance operates on a slightly smaller scale to Militant. Quite how small is revealed by the NEC minutes (NEC members include such blasts from the past as Dave Nellist "

Nellist is probably one of the few elected representatives they have.

2:54 pm, April 16, 2007

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought the largest successor group to Militant was the SP, whcih left the Socialist Alliance a few years ago. And the Scottish SP, of course.

So who are the bunch you're talking about?

3:27 pm, April 16, 2007

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

I think the SP came back into the SA after the SWP left, hence Nellist's involvement - happy to be corrected if this is inaccurate.

3:45 pm, April 16, 2007

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There were 3 Militant MPs - Coventry, Liverpool and Bradford.

They also controlled nationally some public sector unions, and regional parts of others. Currently they are the most important group on the PCS NEC by controlling the 'Left' block.

The SPEW run the CNWP - Campaign for a New Workers Party - which is what Nellist is connected with.

The Socialist Alliance are trying to work with them. It's the tiny group trying to be noticed by the (slightly) larger group.

5:21 pm, April 16, 2007

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Get your facts right -the true inheritors of the Militant line are Socialist Appeal, who follow the Ted Grant/Trotskyist entryist line, are still in LP, and pretty influential in groups like Hands OFf Venezuela. Their programme is a watered-down version of the old Militant Tendency.......There are more Militants left in the Labour Party than anyone realises, and a good thing too. I say no more......

1:17 am, April 18, 2007

 

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