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Workers' Revolutionary Party (UK)
Encyclopedia
The Workers Revolutionary Party is a minute Trotskyist
group in Britain. In the mid-1980s, it split several ways.
and John Lawrence
led in the Revolutionary Communist Party
which urged that the RCP enter the Labour Party
. This policy was also urged on the RCP by the leadership of the Fourth International
. When the majority in the RCP rejected the policy in 1947, Healy's faction was granted the right to split from the RCP and work within the Labour Party as a separate body known internally as The Club
. A year later the majority faction of the RCP decided to join The Club in the Labour Party.
Healy called for a massive educational effort within the organisation, which angered the old leadership. Though he met with opposition, Healy valued having a well-educated cadre over a large number of mindless followers. Healy set to work purging the group of real and imagined opponents with the result that within months the organisation was a fraction of its former size, but Healy's leadership was unchallenged.
In 1948 The Club joined with a number of Labour left and trade union leaders to organise The Socialist Fellowship as a vehicle for left wing Labour Party members. The Socialist Fellowship launched a paper called Socialist Outlook
which John Lawrence became the editor of. When the International Committee of the Fourth International
(ICFI) was established as a public faction of the Fourth International in 1953 it recognised The Club as its official British section. However, Lawrence objected to this and as a result was replaced as editor of the paper. Healy took over editorial duties, but Outlook was banned by the Labour Party in 1954. After this, The Club distributed Tribune
.
The Club was one of the ICFI's larger segments. After the American, Austrian, Chinese, Latin American and Swiss parties of the ICFI agreed to reunification with the FI in 1963 (forming the reunified Fourth International
), The Club controlled the ICFI until its fragmentation in 1985.
's position on the Hungarian Revolution and in part from recruits from trade union
activities. One of their best-known recruits from the CPGB was Peter Fryer
, who had been the Daily Worker
's correspondent in Budapest during the suppression of the uprising by Soviet troops, and who edited The Newsletter, a weekly which began publication in May 1958, over a year before the launching of the SLL. This paper and their publication of a number of Trotsky's then hard-to-find books further helped them recruit from among those disillusioned by the CPGB. Among these recruits were many of the group's best-known intellectuals and leaders such as Cliff Slaughter
and Brian Pearce
.
This, coupled with pressure from a group around leading industrial activist Brian Behan
, led them to form the Socialist Labour League in 1959, independent and for the first time openly Trotskyist, although still with most of its members in the Labour Party. They were also very active in Labour Party youth organisation, the Young Socialists
, and gained control until it was shut down in 1964.
However, during this period they did experience considerable internal tensions. Fryer quit in 1959 and in 1960 a group of members left to form Solidarity (UK)
, which became a theoretically influential, industrially oriented organisation strongly influenced by the ideas of Paul Cardan
.
In 1963, the SLL leadership claimed that they had identified a revolutionary situation in Britain. In their view this meant the most important activity was building the party. They started a daily paper, Workers Press, in the early 1970s and increased the turnover of membership, and began to fear police infiltration. Crisis mongering would become an increasingly prominent part of their public profile and internal and external dissidents were dealt with harshly. One incident saw Ernie Tate
, a Canadian Trotskyist, attacked in public while distributing anti-Healy leaflets.
and some minor celebrities joined.
A major split occurred when Alan Thornett
was expelled, and went on to found the Workers Socialist League. In 1979, a smaller group split from the WRP to found the Workers Party.
In 1975, Corin Redgrave bought White Meadows Villa in Parwich
, Derbyshire
, and the WRP used the house as a venue for training, under the name 'Red House', run by television director Roy Battersby
. The Observer
printed a report alleging that actor Irene Gorst was interrogated while at the school and prevented from leaving. The group sued Observer editor David Astor
over the report, in a case marked by discussion of an armed police raid of the building in which bullets were found. The jury found that not all words in the article were substantially true, but that the complainants' reputations had not been materially injured.
In 1976, the WRP launched an inquiry into the details of Trotsky's death, following claims from Joseph Hansen
that Harold Robins, a founding member of the American Socialist Workers Party might have been a Soviet agent. The eventual report exonerated Robins and claimed that Ramon Mercador was alive in Czechoslovakia. In 1979, the group purchased Trotsky's death mask
to use as an iconic focus for events.
The WRP met with Libya
n officials in 1977 and issued a joint statement, opposing Zionism
, U.S. imperialism and Anwar Sadat
. There were immediate suggestions that this statement might be linked to Libyan funding for the party's newspaper, News Line. Close links continued, with party members regularly speaking at official events in Libya. In 1981, the Sunday Telegraph
alleged that News Line, was financed by money from Muammar al-Gaddafi
's government. In 1983, the Money Programme made similar claims, which were repeated by the Socialist Organiser
newspaper, and the WRP chose to sue them, but soon abandoned the case. When, a little later, the WRP disintegrated, an investigation was carried out by the leadership of the ICFI, with the support of Mike Banda and Cliff Slaughter
, leading figures in the WRP. The report concluded that the WRP had collected information for Libyan Intelligence. As printed by Solidarity
, the report claimed £1,075,163 had been received by the group from Libya and several Middle Eastern governments, between 1977 and 1983. While only a small proportion of this is alleged to have come from Saddam Hussein
's Iraq
i government, it draws particular attention to photograph
s which it claims WRP members were instructed to take of demonstrations of opponents of Saddam Hussein, and it states were later handed to the Iraqi embassy. Dave Bruce, who oversaw the printing press, claims that income from Libya mostly covered the cost of raw materials for printing work for them, including copies of The Green Book, and that the party could otherwise cover its own costs.
The group also set up youth training centres in various deprived communities across Britain. Liberal Party
MP David Alton claimed in Parliament that youths were being taught anti-police methods at the centres, and when he repeated the allegations outside Parliament was sued by the WRP.
The expelled group counter-claimed that the expulsion had been motivated by a failed political coup attempted by party secretary Michael Banda. This group continued to claim to be the WRP, and for a time two versions of the group were in existence, each publishing their own daily News Line paper. The split in the WRP also had repercussions in the ICFI and as a result there were two versions of this body, too.
The two versions of the WRP soon became known by their newspapers with the version led by Gerry Healy and Sheila Torrence being known as the WRP (Newsline). That led by Cliff Slaughter soon expelled Banda, and became known as the WRP (Workers Press). Both would fragment further over the coming years.
The first split in the pro-Healy WRP came when a section of the London membership around full timer Richard Price went into revolt and were expelled in due course. They formed the Workers International League which has since evolved into Workers Action and no longer has anything in common with the Healyism it defended when first founded.
Another split in the pro-Healy ICFI and WRP would develop when the American section of the ICFI led by David North
revolted against Healy's leadership and split to form its own rival movement also called the ICFI. Some members of the WRP sympathetic to North left the WRP at this point to form the International Communist Party, based in Sheffield
. This grouping has since been renamed the Socialist Equality Party
and maintains chapters in six nations.
In 1986, the ICFI loyal to Healy expelled the WRP (Newsline). Healy was removed from the group's Central Committee to become an advisor. When the organisation printed an article reviewing Healy's contribution to Trotskyisim, he concluded that his forced retirement was being finalised. With Corin
and Vanessa Redgrave, he formed a minority tendency which called for a more pro-Soviet alignment, and split away in 1987 to form the Marxist Party
. The Marxist Party would in turn lose another small split after Healy's death which formed the Communist League
while the Marxist Party would linger on until 2004 before dissolving itself.
The WRP (Workers Press) suffered a series of further splits and is now a tiny organisation known as the Movement for Socialism
.
Torrance's WRP is now the only surviving Workers' Revolutionary Party in the UK and it still publishes News Line daily.
The party has been registered with the UK Electoral Commission since 15 May 2001, with Frank Sweeney as registered leader. The WRP has assets of just over £4,000.
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
group in Britain. In the mid-1980s, it split several ways.
The Club
The WRP grew out of the faction Gerry HealyGerry Healy
Thomas Gerard Healy, known as Gerry Healy , was a political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and, according to former prominent U.S. supporter David North, the leader of the Trotskyist movement in Great Britain between 1950 – 1985...
and John Lawrence
John Lawrence (political activist)
John Gordon Michael Lawrence was a leading far left activitist in a wide variety of groups in Britain.-Early life:...
led in the Revolutionary Communist Party
Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1944)
The Revolutionary Communist Party was a British Trotskyist group, formed in 1944 and active until 1949, which published the newspaper Socialist Appeal, a theoretical journal Workers International News and an entrist paper for its Labour Party work The Militant .- Collapse of the RSL and founding of...
which urged that the RCP enter the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
. This policy was also urged on the RCP by the leadership of the Fourth International
Fourth International
The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...
. When the majority in the RCP rejected the policy in 1947, Healy's faction was granted the right to split from the RCP and work within the Labour Party as a separate body known internally as The Club
The Club (Trotskyist)
The Club was a Trotskyist group in the United Kingdom. It operated inside the Labour Party and was the official section of the Fourth International from 1950 until 1953 when, after the FI split, it became part of the International Committee of the Fourth International...
. A year later the majority faction of the RCP decided to join The Club in the Labour Party.
Healy called for a massive educational effort within the organisation, which angered the old leadership. Though he met with opposition, Healy valued having a well-educated cadre over a large number of mindless followers. Healy set to work purging the group of real and imagined opponents with the result that within months the organisation was a fraction of its former size, but Healy's leadership was unchallenged.
In 1948 The Club joined with a number of Labour left and trade union leaders to organise The Socialist Fellowship as a vehicle for left wing Labour Party members. The Socialist Fellowship launched a paper called Socialist Outlook
Socialist Outlook
Socialist Outlook was either of two publications edited by supporters of the Fourth International in Britain.-The first Socialist Outlook:...
which John Lawrence became the editor of. When the International Committee of the Fourth International
International Committee of the Fourth International
The International Committee of the Fourth International is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain.-Foundation:The International...
(ICFI) was established as a public faction of the Fourth International in 1953 it recognised The Club as its official British section. However, Lawrence objected to this and as a result was replaced as editor of the paper. Healy took over editorial duties, but Outlook was banned by the Labour Party in 1954. After this, The Club distributed Tribune
Tribune (magazine)
Tribune is a democratic socialist weekly, founded in 1937 published in London. It is independent but supports the Labour Party from the left...
.
The Club was one of the ICFI's larger segments. After the American, Austrian, Chinese, Latin American and Swiss parties of the ICFI agreed to reunification with the FI in 1963 (forming the reunified Fourth International
Reunified Fourth International
The Fourth International is a Trotskyist international. In 1963, the majorities of the two public factions of the Fourth International, the International Secretariat and the International Committee, reunited, electing a United Secretariat of the Fourth International...
), The Club controlled the ICFI until its fragmentation in 1985.
Socialist Labour League
The group grew, in part as people grew disillusioned with the Communist Party of Great BritainCommunist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
's position on the Hungarian Revolution and in part from recruits from trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
activities. One of their best-known recruits from the CPGB was Peter Fryer
Peter Fryer
Peter Fryer was an English Marxist writer and journalist.-Early life:Peter Fryer joined the Young Communist League in 1942 and the Communist Party in 1945. On leaving school in 1943 he became a reporter on the Yorkshire Post, and was dismissed by the paper in 1947 for refusing to leave the...
, who had been the Daily Worker
The Morning Star
The Morning Star is a left wing British daily tabloid newspaper with a focus on social and trade union issues. Articles and comment columns are contributed by writers from socialist, social democratic, green and religious perspectives....
's correspondent in Budapest during the suppression of the uprising by Soviet troops, and who edited The Newsletter, a weekly which began publication in May 1958, over a year before the launching of the SLL. This paper and their publication of a number of Trotsky's then hard-to-find books further helped them recruit from among those disillusioned by the CPGB. Among these recruits were many of the group's best-known intellectuals and leaders such as Cliff Slaughter
Cliff Slaughter
-Life:During the Second World War, Cliff Slaughter worked in a coal mine as one of the Bevin Boys. While there, he was injured when kicked by a pit pony.He later became a lecturer and writer on sociology and Marxism...
and Brian Pearce
Brian Pearce
Brian Leonard Pearce was a British Marxist politician, historian, and translator.-Biography:Brian Pearce was born in Weymouth, Dorset on 9 May 1915. His father was an upwardly mobile engineer, his mother a domestic servant of Irish extraction. Brian was their only child, a shy and precocious boy,...
.
This, coupled with pressure from a group around leading industrial activist Brian Behan
Brian Behan
Brian Behan was an Irish writer and trade unionist.Behan was born in Dublin, the son of Stephen Behan, younger brother of Brendan Behan and older brother of Dominic Behan...
, led them to form the Socialist Labour League in 1959, independent and for the first time openly Trotskyist, although still with most of its members in the Labour Party. They were also very active in Labour Party youth organisation, the Young Socialists
Labour Party Young Socialists
The Labour Party Young Socialists was the name of the youth section of the British Labour Party from 1965 until 1993. The LPYS was the most successful of the youth sections of the Labour Party in the post war period, at one point having nearly 600 branches and attendances at its national...
, and gained control until it was shut down in 1964.
However, during this period they did experience considerable internal tensions. Fryer quit in 1959 and in 1960 a group of members left to form Solidarity (UK)
Solidarity (UK)
Solidarity was a small libertarian socialist organisation from 1960 to 1992 in the United Kingdom. It published a magazine of the same name. Solidarity was close to council communism in its prescriptions and was known for its emphasis on workers' self-organisation and for its radical...
, which became a theoretically influential, industrially oriented organisation strongly influenced by the ideas of Paul Cardan
Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek philosopher, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group.-Early life in Athens:...
.
In 1963, the SLL leadership claimed that they had identified a revolutionary situation in Britain. In their view this meant the most important activity was building the party. They started a daily paper, Workers Press, in the early 1970s and increased the turnover of membership, and began to fear police infiltration. Crisis mongering would become an increasingly prominent part of their public profile and internal and external dissidents were dealt with harshly. One incident saw Ernie Tate
Ernie Tate
Ernest Tate, known as Ernie Tate, is a long-standing supporter of the reunified Fourth International, based in Canada.Born in Northern Ireland, Tate was recruited by Ross Dowson into the Canadian section of the Fourth International...
, a Canadian Trotskyist, attacked in public while distributing anti-Healy leaflets.
Workers Revolutionary Party
Leaving the Labour Party, the WRP formed the All Trade Unions Alliance, which it wholly controlled. Among its best known policies was the immediate replacement of the police by a workers militia. The party slowly lost members from the mid-1970s as demands on members to serve the organisation took their toll, although Vanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
and some minor celebrities joined.
A major split occurred when Alan Thornett
Alan Thornett
Alan Thornett is a British Trotskyist leader, and one of the officers of the left-wing Respect party.Alan Thornett began his career as a car worker in Cowley, Oxford in 1959. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain there in 1960 before being recruited with other shop stewards to Gerry...
was expelled, and went on to found the Workers Socialist League. In 1979, a smaller group split from the WRP to found the Workers Party.
In 1975, Corin Redgrave bought White Meadows Villa in Parwich
Parwich
Parwich is a village and parish in the Derbyshire Dales, located 7 miles to the north of Ashbourne. Its population is estimated at slightly over 500 inhabitants....
, Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
, and the WRP used the house as a venue for training, under the name 'Red House', run by television director Roy Battersby
Roy Battersby
Roy Battersby is a British TV director, noted for his work in drama productions such as Between The Lines, Inspector Morse, Cracker and A Touch of Frost. Early in his career he made documentary features for the BBC programmes Tomorrow's World and Towards Tomorrow...
. The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
printed a report alleging that actor Irene Gorst was interrogated while at the school and prevented from leaving. The group sued Observer editor David Astor
David Astor
Francis David Langhorne Astor CH was an English newspaper publisher and member of the Astor family.-Early life and career:...
over the report, in a case marked by discussion of an armed police raid of the building in which bullets were found. The jury found that not all words in the article were substantially true, but that the complainants' reputations had not been materially injured.
In 1976, the WRP launched an inquiry into the details of Trotsky's death, following claims from Joseph Hansen
Joseph Hansen (socialist)
Joseph Leroy Hansen , was an American Trotskyist and leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party.Born in Richfield, Utah, Joseph Hansen was the oldest of 15 children in a poor working class family, and he was the only one of them who could attend college. His father, Conrad J. Z...
that Harold Robins, a founding member of the American Socialist Workers Party might have been a Soviet agent. The eventual report exonerated Robins and claimed that Ramon Mercador was alive in Czechoslovakia. In 1979, the group purchased Trotsky's death mask
Death mask
In Western cultures a death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits...
to use as an iconic focus for events.
The WRP met with Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
n officials in 1977 and issued a joint statement, opposing Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, U.S. imperialism and Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981...
. There were immediate suggestions that this statement might be linked to Libyan funding for the party's newspaper, News Line. Close links continued, with party members regularly speaking at official events in Libya. In 1981, the Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Telegraph
The Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately with a different editorial staff, although there is some cross-usage of stories...
alleged that News Line, was financed by money from Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
's government. In 1983, the Money Programme made similar claims, which were repeated by the Socialist Organiser
Socialist Organiser
Socialist Organiser was a weekly socialist newspaper circulated in the Labour Party. The newspaper was founded in 1979 by the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory, later renamed the Socialist Organiser Alliance....
newspaper, and the WRP chose to sue them, but soon abandoned the case. When, a little later, the WRP disintegrated, an investigation was carried out by the leadership of the ICFI, with the support of Mike Banda and Cliff Slaughter
Cliff Slaughter
-Life:During the Second World War, Cliff Slaughter worked in a coal mine as one of the Bevin Boys. While there, he was injured when kicked by a pit pony.He later became a lecturer and writer on sociology and Marxism...
, leading figures in the WRP. The report concluded that the WRP had collected information for Libyan Intelligence. As printed by Solidarity
Solidarity (UK)
Solidarity was a small libertarian socialist organisation from 1960 to 1992 in the United Kingdom. It published a magazine of the same name. Solidarity was close to council communism in its prescriptions and was known for its emphasis on workers' self-organisation and for its radical...
, the report claimed £1,075,163 had been received by the group from Libya and several Middle Eastern governments, between 1977 and 1983. While only a small proportion of this is alleged to have come from Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i government, it draws particular attention to photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
s which it claims WRP members were instructed to take of demonstrations of opponents of Saddam Hussein, and it states were later handed to the Iraqi embassy. Dave Bruce, who oversaw the printing press, claims that income from Libya mostly covered the cost of raw materials for printing work for them, including copies of The Green Book, and that the party could otherwise cover its own costs.
The group also set up youth training centres in various deprived communities across Britain. Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
MP David Alton claimed in Parliament that youths were being taught anti-police methods at the centres, and when he repeated the allegations outside Parliament was sued by the WRP.
Fragmentation
In 1985, the party expelled Healy and his supporters, including Vanessa and Corin Redgrave. Initially he was accused of non-communist relations. Shortly after this split, News Line claimed that the real reason for the expulsion was that Healy had sexually assaulted at least 26 female comrades, as alleged in a letter from his former secretary Aileen Jennings. Some of these allegations were confirmed by an inner-party investigation. This was conducted by two longstanding working-class members of the WRP, one of whom later published the control commission report in his memoirs.The expelled group counter-claimed that the expulsion had been motivated by a failed political coup attempted by party secretary Michael Banda. This group continued to claim to be the WRP, and for a time two versions of the group were in existence, each publishing their own daily News Line paper. The split in the WRP also had repercussions in the ICFI and as a result there were two versions of this body, too.
The two versions of the WRP soon became known by their newspapers with the version led by Gerry Healy and Sheila Torrence being known as the WRP (Newsline). That led by Cliff Slaughter soon expelled Banda, and became known as the WRP (Workers Press). Both would fragment further over the coming years.
The first split in the pro-Healy WRP came when a section of the London membership around full timer Richard Price went into revolt and were expelled in due course. They formed the Workers International League which has since evolved into Workers Action and no longer has anything in common with the Healyism it defended when first founded.
Another split in the pro-Healy ICFI and WRP would develop when the American section of the ICFI led by David North
David North (Socialist)
David North is an American Trotskyist. He is the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States , formerly the Workers League. He served as the national secretary of the SEP until the party's congress in 2008...
revolted against Healy's leadership and split to form its own rival movement also called the ICFI. Some members of the WRP sympathetic to North left the WRP at this point to form the International Communist Party, based in Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
. This grouping has since been renamed the Socialist Equality Party
Socialist Equality Party (UK)
The Socialist Equality Party is a Trotskyist group in Britain. It is part of the International Committee of the Fourth International, which publishes the World Socialist Web Site. The party's origins lie in the Workers Revolutionary Party until the majority of that party split from the ICFI in...
and maintains chapters in six nations.
In 1986, the ICFI loyal to Healy expelled the WRP (Newsline). Healy was removed from the group's Central Committee to become an advisor. When the organisation printed an article reviewing Healy's contribution to Trotskyisim, he concluded that his forced retirement was being finalised. With Corin
Corin Redgrave
Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and political activist.-Early life:Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
and Vanessa Redgrave, he formed a minority tendency which called for a more pro-Soviet alignment, and split away in 1987 to form the Marxist Party
Marxist Party
The Marxist Party was a tiny Trotskyist political party in the United Kingdom. It was formed as a split from Sheila Torrance's Workers' Revolutionary Party in 1987 by Gerry Healy and supporters including Vanessa and Corin Redgrave. At first, it was also known as the Workers Revolutionary Party,...
. The Marxist Party would in turn lose another small split after Healy's death which formed the Communist League
Communist League (UK, 1990)
The Communist League was a small Trotskyist organisation in Britain. Better known as Movement for a Socialist Future, it split from the Marxist Party in 1990, claiming to hold more closely to the ideas of Gerry Healy. In 1994, it published a strongly positive biography of Healy, with a foreword...
while the Marxist Party would linger on until 2004 before dissolving itself.
The WRP (Workers Press) suffered a series of further splits and is now a tiny organisation known as the Movement for Socialism
Movement for Socialism (Britain)
The Movement for Socialism is a socialist group in the United Kingdom, led by Cliff Slaughter. It originated as one half of the major split in the Workers Revolutionary Party of 1985, following allegations about Gerry Healy's sexual activities...
.
Torrance's WRP is now the only surviving Workers' Revolutionary Party in the UK and it still publishes News Line daily.
The party has been registered with the UK Electoral Commission since 15 May 2001, with Frank Sweeney as registered leader. The WRP has assets of just over £4,000.
Young Socialists
The WRP aims to attract young people though the "Young Socialists". It publishes a Young Socialists newspaper weekly. As well as general youth work the party has tried to play a role within universities as well, under the title of the "Young Socialist Student Society", although it has remained minor.Splits
- Solidarity (UK)Solidarity (UK)Solidarity was a small libertarian socialist organisation from 1960 to 1992 in the United Kingdom. It published a magazine of the same name. Solidarity was close to council communism in its prescriptions and was known for its emphasis on workers' self-organisation and for its radical...
(1960) - Workers Socialist League (1974)
- Movement for SocialismMovement for Socialism (Britain)The Movement for Socialism is a socialist group in the United Kingdom, led by Cliff Slaughter. It originated as one half of the major split in the Workers Revolutionary Party of 1985, following allegations about Gerry Healy's sexual activities...
(1985) - Workers' International LeagueWorkers' International League (1985)The Workers' International League was a British Trotskyist organisation that split in early 1987 from the Workers' Revolutionary Party which had been led by Sheila Torrance....
(1985) - Communist ForumCommunist ForumThe Communist Forum was formed in 1986 by Michael Banda as a breakaway from the Workers' Revolutionary Party . It later became the Marxist Philosophy Forum in 1987, and died out shortly afterwards....
(1986) - Marxist PartyMarxist PartyThe Marxist Party was a tiny Trotskyist political party in the United Kingdom. It was formed as a split from Sheila Torrance's Workers' Revolutionary Party in 1987 by Gerry Healy and supporters including Vanessa and Corin Redgrave. At first, it was also known as the Workers Revolutionary Party,...
(1987) also known as Peace and Progress Party (2004)- Communist League (UK, 1990)Communist League (UK, 1990)The Communist League was a small Trotskyist organisation in Britain. Better known as Movement for a Socialist Future, it split from the Marxist Party in 1990, claiming to hold more closely to the ideas of Gerry Healy. In 1994, it published a strongly positive biography of Healy, with a foreword...
also known as Movement for Socialism and A World to Win
- Communist League (UK, 1990)
Articles
- Hallas, DuncanDuncan HallasDuncan Hallas , was a prominent member of the Trotskyist movement and a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in Great Britain.-Biography:...
. Cult comes a cropper (cached by Google) - Healy, GerryGerry HealyThomas Gerard Healy, known as Gerry Healy , was a political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and, according to former prominent U.S. supporter David North, the leader of the Trotskyist movement in Great Britain between 1950 – 1985...
. Some Reflections on the Socialist Labor League. From the March 1960 issue of the Socialist Labour League’s internal bulletin Forum. Reprinted by What Next Journal. Retrieved June 14, 2006. - Higgins, JimJim Higgins (British politician)Jim Higgins was a British revolutionary socialist and leading member of the International Socialists.-Biography:Born into a working-class family in Harrow, Higgins joined the Young Communist League at 14...
. Suppose He Had Been Enthusiastic: Review of Harry Ratner, Reluctant Revolutionary. An review of a memoir of the Socialist Labor League. What Next Journal. ISSN 1479-4330. - Pitt, Bob. The Rise and Fall of Gerry Healy
- North, David. Behind the split in the Workers Revolutionary Party
- John Sullivan "Will the real WRP please stand up?" in As Soon As This Pub Closes
Books
- Lotz, Corinna. Feldman, Paul. Gerry HealyGerry HealyThomas Gerard Healy, known as Gerry Healy , was a political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and, according to former prominent U.S. supporter David North, the leader of the Trotskyist movement in Great Britain between 1950 – 1985...
: A revolutionary life, (1994: London, Lupus Books), ISBN 0952345404 - Harding, Norman. Staying Red: why I remain a socialist, (2005: London, Index Books), ISBN 1-871518-25-3