Interesting and timely piece in the Guardian today from Peter Kilfoyle – the man who took on and defeated the entryist Trotskyites of the Militant tendency in the Liverpool Labour Party in the late eighties.
Kilfoyle played a major role in the clearing of the decks that was carried out under Neil Kinnock’s leadership and then he was a part of Tony Blair’s election campaign team in 1994 and was rewarded with a defence ministers position in 1999.
He is an angry man is comrade Kilfoyle – he believes that once again the Labour Party’s values are under attack – except this time it is not Trots but Blairites he sees undermining the mainstream values of the party.
“Older members recall the internal triumph over sectarianism and wonder whether it was worth it, as a new sectarianism takes hold – one defined by the combination of a perceived neo-Thatcherite economic policy with a quasi-liberal social policy. It is little wonder that those who were committed to Labour before year zero of The Project feel so disaffected.”
