Trotskyists expelled from Labour

Four Trotskyists have been excluded from the Labour Party. The Guardian reports:

The most senior political figure in the Unite union, Jennie Formby, intervened after Labour’s national executive this week recommended that four members of the Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) be barred from party membership.

According to two accounts, Formby, Unite’s political director and a Labour national executive member, argued that the AWL had dissolved itself by deregistering with the Electoral Commission two days after Corbyn was elected party leader and that its members should now be entitled to join the party. Her challenge was rejected.

The four people were Vicki Morris from Nottingham East, Daniel Randall from Hampstead and Kilburn and Ed Maltby and Liam McNulty, both from Hornsey and Wood Green.

The AWL is the new name for Socialist Organiser which was excluded from the Labour Party back in 1990. It is a small but long standing Trotskyist organisation that is a distinct and separate organisation just in the same way the Militant Tendency was in the eighties when it was kicked out of Labour.

Whilst a hundred or so people that make up the AWL might not seem like much of a threat, this does send a message to the organised hard left that their presence is unwelcome. In a separate move the main Corbynista organisation has taken measures to ensure Momentum is not disrupted or used by the Socialist Workers Party who have made public their intention to get involved,

At the same time one small but highly influential Trotskyist organisation seems safely ensconced inside Labour. The Socialist Action group (once part of the long gone International Marxist Group led by Tariq Ali) remains highly placed not just in Labour but also in Unite which might explain the intervention of McCluskey's union.

Socialist Action remains an affiliate of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) along with Socialist Resistance, a slightly larger group that also had it's origins in the IMG. Several of Socialist Actions leading figures were appointed as Ken Livingstone's aides during his reign as London Mayor.

John Ross their guru and leader recently wrote that China had made huge contributions to human rights and poured scorn on the West's version of democracy. Ross describes himself as having been a friend of Corbyn for thirty years.

The AWL's exclusion is likely to hit members of other groups trying to worm their way into the Labour Party such as Ken Loache's misnamed Left Unity Party. Even the old Militant Tendency under their new name, the Socialist Party are making attempts to link up with the new current emerging around Corbyn's base.

Meanwhile the unsavoury Seamus Mine is the latest controversial appointment to Corby's team. Milne is notorious for playing the role of a "useful idiot" for Putin and railing against the West at every opportunity. He is one of those who support every tin-pot dictator that makes anti-western noises. His views on the murder of Lee Rigby make him particularly unpalatable.

The Labour Party's civil war is only in it's early stages but is likely to worsen as Momentum builds itself as a party within a party and acts as a Trojan Horse for political extremists from both the far-left and far-right "anti-imperialist" movements.

The trouble is Corbyn is not very worldly wise as Martin Amis pointed out in the Sunday Times and is not used to dealing with issues outside his comfort zone. That includes taking responsibility for the growing mess inside Labour. His appointments and allies will operate well out of his control. Corbyn's not very bright and frankly a very weak politician who should never be allowed to gain the reins of power.

Slogans and wishful thinking will not revive Labour's falling fortunes as is quite apparent from the latest opinion polls both nationally and in Scotland where Labour needs to fight back against the divisive nationalism of the SNP.

Corbyn is indeed the false messiah.