Peter Taaffe

Taaffe was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire on 7 April 1942. His father, a sheet metal worker, died when he was young.{{Cite book |last=McSmith |first=Andy |title=Faces of Labour: The Inside Story |date=1997 |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1-85984-093-1 |location=London ; New York |pages=100}} Taaffe and his five siblings grew up in poverty. As a child, the ceiling of Taaffe's house collapsed on him whilst he was asleep, leaving him with a permanent scar on his nose.{{Cite news |date=2025-04-24 |title=Peter Taaffe, driving force behind the Militant Tendency which paralysed Labour in the 1980s |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/04/24/peter-taaffe-militant-tendency-trotskyist-labour-party/ |access-date=2025-04-25 |work=The Telegraph |location=London |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}}

One of his early jobs after leaving school was in the Liverpool City Council treasury department.

He was recruited to what would become the Militant tendency in 1960 by Ted Grant.{{cite news |last1=Wade |first1=Bob |title=Ted Grant (obituary) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jul/27/guardianobituaries.southafrica |access-date=14 August 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=27 July 2006}}

Between 1979 and 1982, the group's membership had doubled in size.{{Cite journal |last=Thomas-Symonds |first=Nick |date=March 2005 |title=A Reinterpretation of Michael Foot's Handling of the Militant Tendency |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1361946042000303846 |journal=Contemporary British History |language=en |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=27–51 |doi=10.1080/1361946042000303846 |issn=1361-9462}} In 1982, Militant gained control of Liverpool City Council. Derek Hatton, the deputy leader of the council, described Taaffe as "legendary", and a major influence on the council's policy decisions.{{Cite book |last=Hatton |first=Derek |title=Inside Left: the story so far |date=1988 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-0-7475-0185-5 |location=London |pages=32}}

Under pressure from centrists within the party,{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Mervyn |title=Michael Foot |date=1994 |publisher=Gollancz |isbn=978-0-575-05933-7 |location=London}} the left-wing Labour leader Michael Foot conducted an internal inquiry into Militant's activities. The Hayward-Hughes inquiry of 1982 found Militant guilty of breaking the Labour Party constitution. Within a year, Taaffe and the rest of Militant's editorial board were expelled from the Labour Party.{{Cite journal |last=Jobson |first=Richard |date=2024-07-02 |title=‘A different species’: the British Labour Party and the Militant ‘other’, 1979-1983 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13619462.2024.2305434 |journal=Contemporary British History |language=en |volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=483–509 |doi=10.1080/13619462.2024.2305434 |issn=1361-9462 |doi-access=free}} Following Foot's landslide defeat to Margaret Thatcher in the 1983 election, he was succeeded as Labour leader by Neil Kinnock, who initiated a purge of Taaffe's followers from the Labour Party in an attempt to bring the party closer to the political centre.{{Cite book |last=Westlake |first=Martin |title=Kinnock: The Biography |date=2001 |publisher=Little, Brown and Co |isbn=978-0-316-84871-8 |location=London}} Throughout the 1980s, scores of Militant activists, including Hatton, were expelled from Labour constituencies across the country.{{Cite book |last=Crick |first=Michael |title=The March of Militant |date=1986 |publisher=Faber and Faber |isbn=978-0-571-14643-7 |location=London ; Boston}}

In 1991, there was a debate within Militant as to whether to continue working within the Labour Party, centred around whether they could still effectively operate in the party following the expulsions. The group became Militant Labour in 1991, after leaving the Labour Party. In 1997, Militant Labour changed its name to the Socialist Party,{{Cite web |title=The Socialist Party (formerly the Revolutionary Socialist League, Militant Tendency and Militant Labour) |url=https://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/MIL |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk |language=en-gb}}

In 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party. While Taaffe was supportive of Corbyn himself,{{Cite news |last=Stewart |first=Heather |last2=Elgot |first2=Jessica |date=2016-11-11 |title=Socialist party leader submits application to rejoin Labour |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/11/peter-taaffe-socialist-militants-labour |access-date=2024-08-14 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}} he was critical of Momentum, a pro-Corbyn grassroots organisation that supported the compulsory reselection of Labour MPs, including those on the right of the party. "What is the point of Jeremy Corbyn without the right to remove the Blairites, who are an enormous drag on the progress of the Labour Party?"{{Cite news |last=Stewart |first=Heather |last2=Elgot |first2=Jessica |date=2016-11-11 |title=Socialist party leader submits application to rejoin Labour |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/11/peter-taaffe-socialist-militants-labour |access-date=2025-04-23 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}

In 2016, Taaffe and several other members of the Socialist Party attempted to re-join the Labour Party.{{Cite news |last=Association |first=Press |date=2018-09-28 |title=Derek Hatton claims to have rejoined Labour decades after Kinnock expulsion |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/28/derek-hatton-rejoins-labour-33-years-after-neil-kinnock-kicked-him-out |access-date=2025-04-23 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}

A the Socialist Party National Congress in 2020, Taaffe's stood down as General Secretary.{{Cite web |last=Archivist |date=2020-03-11 |title=Socialist Party executive committee positions |url=https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/30409/11-03-2020/socialist-party-executive-committee-positions/ |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=Socialist Party |language=en-GB}}

In 1966, Taaffe married Linda Driscoll. She worked as a primary school teacher, and was heavily involved in a Trotskyist faction of the National Union of Teachers.{{Cite web |date=2012-04-12 |title=The six key militants |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/the-six-key-militants-6329438.html |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=The Standard |language=en}} They had two daughters; Nancy Taaffe stood as a TUSC candidate in local elections.{{Cite news |date=2025-04-24 |title=Peter Taaffe, driving force behind the Militant Tendency which paralysed Labour in the 1980s |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/04/24/peter-taaffe-militant-tendency-trotskyist-labour-party/ |access-date=2025-04-25 |work=The Telegraph |location=London |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}}{{Cite web |title=Nancy Taaffe for North East in the London Assembly elections (Constituencies) |url=https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/person/1599/nancy-taaffe |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=whocanivotefor.co.uk |language=en}} In his youth, Taaffe was a keen footballer, and he was a life-long supporter of Everton Football Club.

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• [http://www.socialistparty.org.uk Socialist Party (England & Wales)] website
• [http://www.socialistworld.net Committee for a Workers' International] website
• [http://www.marxist.net Marxist resource from the Committee for a Workers' International]
• [http://www.marxist.com/history-british-trotskyism-ted-grant.htm History of British Trotskyism] By Ted Grant
• [http://www.marxist.net/grantreply/index.html Militant's Real History: In reply to Ted Grant and Rob Sewell] by Peter Taaffe (this is a reply to Ted Grant's [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930171127/http://www.marxist.com/history-british-trotskyism-introduction.htm History of British Trotskyism] and Rob Sewell's [http://www.marxist.com/hbt/p-1.html Postscript] to it)

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{{succession box|title=Editor of Militant|years=1964–1994|before=New position|after=Nick Wrack}}

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Category:1942 births

Category:2025 deaths

Category:British anti–nuclear weapons activists

Category:British Marxists

Category:British political writers

Category:British Trotskyists

Category:Committee for a Workers' International

Category:British Marxist writers

Category:Militant tendency supporters

Category:People from Birkenhead

Category:Socialist Party (England and Wales) members