Militant Tendency

In British politics, left-wing faction originally within the Labour Party, aligned with the publication Militant. It became active in the 1970s, with radical socialist policies based on Trotskyism (see Trotsky), and gained some success in local government, for example in the inner-city area of Liverpool. In the mid-1980s the Labour Party considered it to be a separate organization within the party and banned it.

A number of senior Militants were expelled from the party in 1986, amid much legal conflict. The contested deselection of the incumbent member of Parliament Frank Field as Labour candidate for Birkenhead, Lancashire, in 1990 led to renewed allegations of Militant infiltration of the Labour Party. In 1991 a Militant Tendency candidate openly contested the Liverpool (Walton) by-election with the official Labour candidate and in 1996 Militant remained influential in the city.