MILITANT tendency has expelled its founder Ted Grant - the person it once extolled as the foremost figure of Trotskyism in Britain and internationally' - and 35 other supporters.
The move comes after a biter 10 month dispute inside Miltant which Mahmood in Walton and the recent counterposed to Labour in Scotland.
Ted Grant utterly opposed this so-called 'Scottish turn' which was nevertheless backed by a majory of sittin supporters, Incidu ing the paper's editor Poter Taaffe. and top anti-poll tax activist Tommy Sheridan. macose of araanisina nade facti weakaway group with a rival publicaFeb. 1, 1992 No. 15 bon and its own premises, staff and obvious breach of discipline. But his co-thinkers counterclaim they have been bureaucratically excluded from the tendency with no right of appeal Despite Militant's attempt to ridicule Grant's so-called 'miniexodus, he is likely to be joined by a further 4-800 activists. The whole affair demonstrates the need for poltical mechanisms which can hande sharp differences inside socialist tendencies, proving once more that internal democracy is no mere bolt-on But the heart of the issue is how socialists in the Labour Party respond to Kinnock's drive to push the party evor-further rightward. Taalfe and his supporters correctiv saw that the kind of tactics practised by Miltant since its foundation were no longer practical. Twin-track' approach, working both inside and outside the Labour Party But this does not mean buikding minipaross in oppositon to such at Scottish Miltant Labour.
Such energies could be far better spent developing the Socialist Move ment, which has the potential to be come a genuine and widely-supported united front based on class-struggler poitics Yet. as ever, Militant refuses to participate in anything not under its own control.
Yet there is Ittle mileage in the new Grant group sticking to its founder's dogmatic schemas. There is a real danger that such passivity generate a reversal to the sterile poitics which characterised Miltant until the mid-1980s, which effectively dismissed feminism, lesbian and gay sideshows.
The crisis in Miltant is an inevitable result of the twin evils of soctarianism and passive propagandism. Both wings of the ex-Militant have a prolonged history of counterposing abstract propaganda for sociaism to participation in real struggles; and an organisational sectarianism which treated union broad lefts and anti-poll ground.
Mlitant's persistent refusal to build hunt has rebounded on the entire Labour men in Ristondon dosest rul nockism The sple wil give both sides an opportunty to rethink the disastrous Miltant heritage. But the evidence so tar is tial te solk wi create two dogmatic and sectarian groups, with the sole dr'erence that one is many inside the Labour Party and one mainly outside.