Tom Watson Deputy Labour Leader on Entryism by the AWL

The following post is taken from Tom Watson on Facebook in which he illustrates one example of a Trotskyist group entering the Labour Party. There are of course others and even the old Militant Tendency is trying to get back in.

There are others who used to belong to the various sects including the Left Unity Party who are not exactly "Trotskyists" but should also be treated in the same way.

In recent days an increasing number of people have made the false claim that I labelled all our new joiners as "trotskyists". This is not true.

The quote "old hands twist young arms" derives from an interview I did with the Guardian where I raised concerns that trotskyist organisations were targeting our young members. Incidentally, I also raised the issue of returning to shadow cabinet elections - which in my view is imperative whoever wins the leadership. It's probably the only way a front bench can be reassembled and united.


My claim about groups like the Alliance for Workers Liberty is evidenced with publicly available information, if people care to look. Some might not like me saying these things but I'm not making this stuff up, as others have claimed.

If you do want to look at the facts, there are more details below.

At the Alliance for Workers' Liberty conference on 21-22 November 2015, two months after the AWL was de-registered by the Electoral Commission, the group adopted three documents, entitled:

1.After the Corbyn Surge
2.The Next 12 Months
3.Student Activity 2015-16

These three documents outline a concerted strategy for members of the AWL to infiltrate (or, to use the language of the documents, "intervene") in the Labour Party with the explicit intention of influencing the party to indoctrinate “more people of revolutionary socialist ideas," "advance and transform the wider labour movement" and to focus "on drawing in, organising, propagandising among, and recruiting among, the new people (especially the new young people) mobilised by the Corbyn surge."

http://www.workersliberty.org/node/26057

The reference in the above to "young people" is instructive, given that the document 'Student Activity 2015-16' outlines a specific plan to infiltrate university Labour Clubs to revolutionary socialist politics, with the aim of "organis[ing] and politically hegomon[ising] these people,". The document 'After the Corbyn Surge' spells out this priority - "youth work is particularly important for renewing the movement and for convincing a new generation of socialists."

http://www.workersliberty.org/node/26059

These documents clearly demonstrate a concerted effort by AWL to gain influence within local parties and student groups, to "consolidate leftwing victories" by "winning officer roles and policy votes," to "break the right [of the Labour Party, defined by the fringe left as anybody who does not share their politics wholesale] quickly" and engage in local parties by "circulat[ing] motions, blogposts and literature." Going further, the adopted platform of the AWL as of November 2015 was that "all AWL members should be members of the Labour Party unless specifically agreed; doing Labour Party work of some kind should be the norm," "in every area and at every level.”

http://www.workersliberty.org/node/26059

This campaign continues - the July 2016 issue of the AWL’s newspaper Solidarity splashes the headline ‘Flood the Labour Party’ with a call for members to step up their infiltration (or “intervention”) into the party.

http://www.workersliberty.org/system/files/411.pdf

The group's platform calls for Labour councils, like the one in Brighton & Hove, to "refuse to implement cuts" - that is, to set illegal budgets that would bring Tory-run DCLG bureaucrats into city hall to run the city and the deselection of MPs.