Militant
Concern about the Militant tendency led Reg Underhill, whose 1975 report had been dismissed by Heffer, to issue a revised version in 1980. This report made it clear that most party institutions in Liverpool, especially in Heffer's constituency, were now under Militant control. Heffer compared the report to the propaganda of Joseph Goebbels, but he knew that Militant was powerful: when Heffer considered running against Denis Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party under the new electoral college system in 1981, his constituency party prevented him. He supported Benn when Benn challenged Healey.
Heffer was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in 1981. While he was a strong supporter of the left, Heffer accepted the need to preserve party unity. In December 1981 he attempted to solve the problem of Michael Foot's denunciation of Peter Tatchell (who had been selected as Labour candidate for Bermondsey) by holding a quick enquiry, but this attempt failed when Foot loyalists passed a motion to refuse Tatchell endorsement. Heffer's attempts to mediate between the Bermondsey Party and Foot were regarded as 'paternalist' by Tatchell and his local supporters. Heffer also joined with Foot and Denis Healey in an NEC motion calling for negotiations with the United Nations Secretary-General after the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands on 28 April 1982, in opposition to a motion from Tony Benn calling for a ceasefire and withdrawal of the British taskforce.
In June 1982 the NEC discussed Militant again, with Heffer proposing that all members of the Labour Party subscribe to a 'statement of democratic socialist principles' which was defeated by 22 votes to 5. At the 1982 Labour Party conference the right-wing won back control of the NEC, and at its first meeting the left-wing were voted out of all their chairmanships in a coup organised by John Golding. This included Heffer, who had been chairman of the powerful 'Organisation Sub-Committee' (usually known as Org Sub). The change allowed the right to begin to take action against Militant, membership of which was declared incompatible with party membership. The five members of Militant's editorial board were expelled in February 1983 despite Heffer's motion to have a further investigation.
Read more about this topic: Eric Heffer
Famous quotes containing the word militant:
““I” is a militant social tendency, working to hold and enlarge its place in the general current of tendencies. So far as it can it waxes, as all life does. To think of it as apart from society is a palpable absurdity of which no one could be guilty who really saw it as a fact of life.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Let us pray for the whole state of Christ’s Church Militant here in earth.”
—Book Of Common Prayer, The. Holy Communion, “Prayer for the Church Militant,” (1662)
“We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians.”
—Nicolai A. Berdyaev (1874–1948)