The Militant Tendency leading light Derek Hatton has rejoined the Labour Party. The former councillor was expelled from Labour in the mid-1980s after he was held responsible for setting an illegal budget at Liverpool City Council.
Hatton told ITV’s Party People programme he wanted to “have one more go at having a say in the way the Labour Party is going”. The last time he was involved in Labour politics Neil Kinnock used his party conference speech to condemn the “grotesque chaos” of his regime.
Kinnock claimed that by ignoring the Thatcher government’s limits on spending the council was forced to hire taxis to “shuttle around the city handing out redundancy notes to it’s own workers”. He continued: “You cannot play politics with people’s jobs, people’s services and people’s lives.”
Founded in the mid-1960s, Militant Tendency had sprung from a Trotskyist group called the Revolutionary Socialist League. Its goals included widespread nationalisation and embarking on a massive programme of public works.
Kinnock’s speech highlighted that ideological baggage and was considered a defining moment in Labour’s move from the hard-left socialism of the 1970s and early 1980s. It led Kinnock to remove everyone believed to be associated with Militant, amidst allegations they secretly planned to take over the party altogether.
Mr Hatton said: “I just felt that I should do something. I think for too long now the Labour Party has drifted and drifted and drifted. There has now become no difference between the parties. It was the same type of Oxford/Eton person going forward. People now need to see there is a clear choice when they go into the voting booth.”
His arrival has added to concerns that Labour will drift to the left once again. At the general election the party put forward one of it’s most left-wing manifestos in decades. The frontrunner to take the leadership, Andy Burnham, is known to be supportive of the Unite Trade Union.
Tory MP, David Morris, told Breitbart London: “Hatton’s return is hardly an example of the party being at the pinnancle of a modern democracy. He’s arrived to play his part in driving the party ever further to the left. It started when Unite began forcing their placemen through Parliamentary selections, then Hatton joined Labour, and soon it will elect Andy Burnham as it’s new far left leader.”
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