Alan Thornett (born 15 June 1937) is a British

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...

. Alan Thornett began his career as a car worker in

Plant Oxford Plant Oxford located in Cowley, southeast Oxford, England, is a BMW car assembly facility where Mini cars are built. The plant forms the Mini production triangle along with Plant Hams Hall where engines are manufactured and Plant Swindon w ...

, Cowley,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in 1959. He joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

there in 1960 before being recruited with other shop stewards to

Gerry Healy Thomas Gerard Healy (3 December 1913 – 14 December 1989) was a political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International and the leader of the Socialist Labour League and later the Workers Revolutionary Part ...

's then

Socialist Labour League The Workers Revolutionary Party is a Trotskyist group in Britain once led by Gerry Healy. In the mid-1980s, it split into several smaller groups, one of which retains possession of the name. The Club The WRP grew out of the faction Gerry Healy ...

in 1966. 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 the

Workers Socialist League The Workers Socialist League (WSL) was a Trotskyist group in Britain. The group was formed by Alan Thornett and other members of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) after their expulsion from that group in 1974. Origins Thornett and his c ...

(WSL) of which Thornett was a leader. It established an international tendency, the

Trotskyist International Liaison Committee The Trotskyist International Liaison Committee was the international organisation established by the Workers Socialist League in Britain (of which Alan Thornett was the best-known member) and its international co-thinkers in Italy, Denmark, the U ...

, and fused with the

International-Communist League The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), also known as Workers' Liberty, is a Trotskyist group in Britain and Australia, which has been identified with the theorist Sean Matgamna throughout its history. It publishes the newspaper '' Solidarity'' ...

in 1981. Political differences emerged in the new organisation with parts of the ex-WSL splitting off before those remaining were expelled in 1984. Thornett and his comrades regrouped as the

Socialist Group The Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group (french: Groupe Socialiste, SOC) is a primarily social-democratic political grouping in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It was known as the Socialist Group prior to August 2017. The g ...

and then fused with the

International Group :''See also the International Marxist Group (Germany). The International Marxist Group (IMG) was a Trotskyist group in Britain between 1968 and 1982. It was the British Section of the Fourth International. It had around 1,000 members and support ...

to form the

International Socialist Group The International Socialist Group (ISG) was a Trotskyist organisation in Britain. It was the British section of the Fourth International (Post-Reunification), Fourth International (FI) until 2009 when it dissolved into Socialist Resistance. ...

(ISG) in 1987; the ISG dissolved into

Socialist Resistance Socialist Resistance (SR) is a Trotskyist organisation in Britain. In 2009, the International Socialist Group (ISG) merged into it, making it the British Section of the Fourth International. Origins It was launched in 2002 by two organisations, ...

in 2009. Thornett is now a leader of the

Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...

. 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 the

Respect Coalition The Respect Party was a left-wing to far-left, socialist political party active in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2016. At the height of its success in 2007, the party had one Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons and nineteen ...

. In the 2007 split in Respect, the ISG sided with the Respect Renewal faction around

George Galloway George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, broadcaster, and writer who is currently leader of the Workers Party of Britain, serving since 2019. Between 1987 and 2010, and then between 2012 and 2015, Galloway was a Member o ...

against the SWP. 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 Cowley'' and ''Militant Years'', and of ''Facing the Apocalypse - Arguments for Ecosocialism''

References

External links

Debate on The European Radical Left
A reply to

Alex Callinicos Alexander Theodore Callinicos (born 24 July 1950) is a Rhodesian-born British political theorist and activist. An adherent of Trotskyism, he is a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and serves as its Internatio ...

". 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 move

forwards.
Catalogue of Thornett's papers
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thornett, Alan 1937 births Communist Party of Great Britain members Ecosocialists English Trotskyists Living people Respect Party people Workers Revolutionary Party (UK) members British political party founders