{{unreferenced, date=October 2007
''Socialist Organiser'' was a weekly socialist newspaper circulated in the
Labour Party. The newspaper was founded in 1979 by the
Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory
The Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory (SCLV) was originally formed in 1978 by left-wing members of the British Labour Party, including those associated with the Trotskyist group Workers' Fight and the publications ''London Labour Briefing' ...
, later renamed the
Socialist Organiser Alliance
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''.
...
.
The newspaper was originally a vehicle for united work between 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''.
...
(I-CL), 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 ...
(who merged with the ICL to become a new WSL),
Workers Power and independent leftists, such as
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...
.
Some independent Labour leftists split from the paper when it opposed the tactic of raising rates to offset cuts to local government services.
In the mid-1980s, the paper was sued by the
Workers Revolutionary Party over claims they repeated that the WRP was partially funded by money from the Libyan and Iraqi governments, but the WRP abandoned the action.
The newspaper gradually became more identified with the new WSL. This process was completed when the ICL/WSL fusion broke, as ''Socialist Organiser'' re-evaluated many of its international policies and developed its own distinctive "
third camp
The third camp, also known as third camp socialism or third camp Trotskyism, is a branch of socialism that aims to oppose both capitalism and Stalinism by supporting the organised working class as a "third camp".
The term arose early during W ...
" position.
As ''Socialist Organiser'' lost ground as a broad vehicle of left unity in the Labour Party,
Sean Matgamna
Sean Matgamna is an Irish Trotskyist active in Britain. A founder of Workers' Fight in 1966, he is still a prominent member of the group, now called the Alliance for Workers' Liberty.
Early life
Matgamna was born in 1941 in Ennis, County Clar ...
's supporters from the former ICL began to work entirely through the Socialist Organiser Alliance.
Socialist Organiser was denied the right to register with the Labour Party in 1990, but this had little practical effect and it continued to be published until the mid-1990s, when the
Alliance for Workers' Liberty
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''.
...
and
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.
...
supported the launch of a new newspaper, ''
Action for Solidarity''.
Newspapers established in 1979
Defunct newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Socialist newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Labour Party (UK) publications
1979 establishments in the United Kingdom