Top bloke. Ran a pub in his later days, I believe. None of the greasy pole to highly-paid consultancies that today's rejected Labour MPs get.

"was expelled from the Labour Party in September of that year for his Militant tendencies" - do you think a journalist with a lack of historical knowledge misheard something?

I didn't agree with his politics, but he did have one great suggestion, which could sort out the latest expenses row: a worker's wage.

A really good MP whom we treated very badly, as a party.  Not an episode in our history that anyone should look back on with pride.

Utterly  disgusting that people post  such horrible comments. Terry Fields was a decent man. If only  we had  more like him now

I have no comment on Terry Fields as a person, he may have been the nicest, most considerate and decent bloke in the world.  I never met him, so I can't comment.  But I can comment on his politics and I will.  Respect for the dead does not mean you reinvent them, it means you feel sorry for their nearest and dearest and hope they are coping as well as they can with their loss, but it does not mean that we should allow people to suggest that he was somehow the saviour the Labour Party never recognised.

He was a member of Militant, along with Dave Nellist in Coventry, he sat as a Labour MP but was loyal to a Trotskyist Entryist Organisation that tried to take over and destroy the Labour Party in the early 80s.  I remember the meetings that went on to midnight and beyond as Miliant comrades all with the same jabbing right hand and faux Merseyside accent kept the meeting going as long as possible until the normal people gave up and went home. 

I remember being chased through the streets of Coventry by Militant thugs as I handed out leaflets for the Labour candidate once Nellist had been expelled.  I remember being beaten up by Militant members of the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign for having the temerity to suggest at a meeting that non payment would leave the poor and those unable to pay at the sharp end of the law whilst middle class kids from Militant would pay at the last minute and hope they had done their bit for the transitional demands that would bring about the revolution.  And I say that as someone who did not pay and acted as McKenzies Friends to many others in court - whilst the Militant waved banners and sold papers to pensioners who could not afford the poll tax outside.

I remember the vicious attacks on those who were from the traditional left, and right, of the party who had kept it going through thick and thin.  I remember being shouted at before meetings for not buying the paper or refusing to put money in the latest crackpot collection for some Trot front group.  I remember them undermining the Anti Nazi League because it was led by the SWP and setting up an alternative instead. 

I remember their dismissal of lesbians and gay men as bourgious deviation that would disappear post revolution. 

I also remember Peter Kilfoyle fighting a by election against Trotskyist and expelled Militant member Lesley Mahmood in Liverpool and all the hatred of real Labour people they expressed in Terry Fields back yard.

And, overall I remember the intimidation, the violence, the hatred that came with their politics.

The Militant were a cancer in the party.  They needed to be expelled and I was delighted that they were and that I helped in my own small way. 

So, we can be sad that someone has died, and hope their friends and family are coping, but I really object to the attempt to position Terry as anything more than a Militant MP who rode the back of the Labour Party to parliament and allied himself with Trots and Thugs who cared nothing for ordinary Labour voters and even less for Labour members.

I met him a few time and he was Labour, as for trying to take over Labour, like Blair and Brown you mean.

I look at the new each day and see many of our troops dying because of Blair while he runs around the world telling people it's better to talk peace.

I watched him make millions telling the Americans about how he went to wear with Bush the imbecile.

I rather see twenty real MP's like Fields then twenty like Blair or Brown, everyone is running around now giving Nye Bevan praise, yet they do not mention like Fields he was kicked out of Labour for his militant tenancies. 

Terry Fields was not kicked out of Labour for his militant tendencies.  Terry Fields was kicked out of the Labour Party for being a member of Militant, an avowed Trotskyist Group that was a party within a party, committed to using entryist techniques and violence to take over the Party.  At one stage it had more full time organisers across the country than the party itself.

Perhaps that is why I did not mention Bevan?

A working class hero!

John Wiseman
Editor
Merseyside Amicus Unity Gazette
Liverpool 2A/0538 Branch

The criticism is a disgrace!

John Wiseman and e10rifles.

Militant were not working class heroes, not then and not now in their Socialist Party format.

I do not use Trot as a throwaway insult, I use it in its correct way i.e. to identify a group that was avowedly Trotskyist, that fought other Trotskyist organisations for the British franchise to the (pick a number of your choice) International, believed in permanent worldwide revolution and that the job of a Trotskyist organisation was to "support the national Social Democratic Party in such a way as a rope supports a hanged man".  So, let's clear it up once and for all.

Militant were Trots.  They did not support the Labour Party.  They wanted to infiltrate as a party within a party and then take over the Labour Party.  They had their own political goals and manifesto.  They had their own headquarters and regional offices.  They had their own newspaper.  They had more regional organisers than the Labour Party.  They believed in intimidation and violence to get their way both within and without the Labour Party.  In short, they were Trotskyists.  And Terry Fields was one of them - if you don't believe me read the helfpul link above to the story written by one of those full time Militant Organisers who organised Fields, Nellist and Pat Wall at the time.

None of this is disputed by anyone around at the time, including the Militant themselves (though they may argue about the violence bit).

So please e10rifles and John Wiseman, can you explain which part of my previous post was untrue?

e10rifles,

Thanks for your clarifcation. 

My by-the-steps guide to why Militant were Trots was in response to your assertion I was using the phrase as a throwaway insult, which in your new post you graciously accept I was not.

I accept that not all members of the Militant were middle class, but a lot I met in South Wales at the time were, and they did their best to hide it, including one I knew who used to park the car he had been bought by his dad a quarter of a mile from the University he went to and then walk the rest of the way.  I know there were some working class Militant members mainly in Liverpool, and I apologise for the charicature.  I do not however apologise for my analysis that the Militant which did so much to make Labour unelectable in the early  and mid 80s were not in any way working class heroes.

I also accept there may have been some violence and intimidation from the other side in the 80s, but it was not systematic and part of the organisational approach of the core Labour Party at the time as it was with the Militant. 

But I think we should put to bed the school boy attempts to link the political tactics and analysis of the entryist Militant organisation to Tony Blair.

Just look at the results of the 1994 leadership election.  Blair got 52% of unions; 58% of CLPs; and 60% of MPs in the election for an overall total of 57%.  Prescott got 24% and Beckett got 19%.  This was not a subversive take over, he stood up and said I am new Labour, he used the phrase during his election campaign hence all the worry that he was going to change the name of the party, and even when faced with the then acting Leader in Margaret Beckett and a working class hero in John Prescott over half of all sections of the Labour Party voted for him in an open election.

Now if David Nellist had stood up and said, I am Militant Labour, and had got 50% of the vote in each section we would have a comparable ball game.

"If Blair and Fields had both said what they believed at an 80's Labour Party meeting it would be Blairs balls hanging from the ceiling, not Terry's"

There it is folks, in one sentence, why Labour lost throughout the 80s and it took us until 1997 to recover.

I cannot believe that people on this site are putting so much energy into defending Militant and Tony Benn and attacking Tony Blair and Neil Kinnock.

Tony Benn's analysis that the 1983 election result was "8 million votes for socialism" showed just how out of touch he and his mates were with the country at that time.  The manifesto was a disaster, the campaign was a disaster, and the fact that Margaret Thatcher ended up with a majority of well over 100 was a disaster for the people you claim were represented by Militant and Benn, the people who really needed our help.

And as for the post about Marxism has always had a place in the broad church of the Labour Party, nonsense on a stick.  The original Clause 4 was written with the express purpose of differentiating the Labour brand of socialism from communism and marxism and the Social Democratic Federation that someone mentioned were the first group expelled from the Labour Party just a couple of years after the party was formed.

Marxism/Communism/Leninism/Trotskyism has never and should never have a place in our Party.  The founders knew that and the mainstream of the party throughout our history has known that, and that apart from being a whiff of dishonesty is why groups like Militant, Socialist Outlook, Socialist Organiser et all have all tried to hide their organisations.

I worked in Liverpool in the late 1970s/early 1980s as Militant were growing stronger. I cannot comment on Terry Fields as an individual.
But I can say this : Militant brought Labour and the Trade Union movement into as much disrepute as the Blair/Brown partnership : and if they had ever gained power- heaven forbid- would have destroyed Britain's economic base.

You are entilted to your opinion.
I remember 1983: michale Foot was rather like Gordon Brown: a man chosen to be Labour Leader who - despite his many great abilities - was clealry unsuited to the job.

As for Militant, how many jobs did they save? They remind me of Arthur Scargill who almost single handed helped destroy the NUM.

 Militant achieved nothing: fact.

You forgot the 30,000 redundancy notices, .. etc.

Terry Fields was a liar. He lied about the Militant - as did all its members.

That's a fact.