Alan Thornett(born 15 June 1937) is a BritishTrotskyist.
Alan Thornett began his career as a car worker inPlant Oxford,Cowley,Oxfordin 1959. He joined theCommunist Party of Great Britainthere in 1960 before being recruited with other shop stewards toGerry Healy's thenSocialist Labour Leaguein 1966.[1]However, in 1974 he and most of the Cowley group were expelled - from what had become the Workers Revolutionary Party the previous year - with around 200 other members. Around a hundred of them went on to form theWorkers Socialist League(WSL) of which Thornett was a leader. It established an international tendency, the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee, and fused with theInternational-Communist Leaguein 1981. Political differences emerged in the new organisation with parts of the ex-WSL splitting off before those remaining were expelled in 1984.[2]
Thornett and his comrades regrouped as theSocialist Groupand then fused with theInternational Groupto form theInternational Socialist Group(ISG) in 1987; the ISG dissolved intoSocialist Resistancein 2009. Thornett is now a leader of theFourth International.
Thornett successfully argued for the ISG to exit the Labour Party and join the Socialist Alliance. Later, he supported the Alliance's dissolution in favour of theRespect Coalition.In the 2007 split in Respect, the ISG sided with the Respect Renewal faction aroundGeorge Gallowayagainst theSWP.Thornett sat on Respect's National Council until Socialist Resistance left Respect in 2010.
Thornett is the author of three volumes of autobiography:From Militancy to Marxism,Inside CowleyandMilitant Years,[3]and ofFacing the Apocalypse - Arguments for Ecosocialism[4]
References
edit- ^Bob Pitt:The Rise and Fall of Gerry Healy,Chapter 7.
- ^What really happened in the 'Thornett' split following the fusion of the I-CL and the WSL in 1981?http://archive.workersliberty.org/publications/readings/trots/thornett.html
- ^Review of Militant Years
- ^"Resistance Books".Retrieved3 March2019.
External links
edit- "Debate on The European Radical LeftA reply toAlex Callinicos".Article by Thornett contrasting the ISG's approach to Respect to the SWP's.
- "Building Respect, how we get beyond the current stage".Article by Thornett critically assessing how to moveRespect Coalitionforwards.
- Catalogue of Thornett's papers,held at theModern Records Centre, University of Warwick