Alan Thornett (born 1937) is a British Trotskyist leader. Then a car worker in Oxford, Alan Thornett was recruited to Gerry Healy's Socialist Labour League in the early 1960s. He helped to build a formidable support for Trotskyist ideas in the Cowley Oxford plant during the 1960s and early 1970s. 1937 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... Gerry Healy (December 3, 1913 - December 14, 1989) was a Trotskyist politician. ... The Workers Revolutionary Party was a Trotskyist political party in the United Kingdom. ... The 1960s, or The Sixties, in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ...

However, in 1973 he and most of the Cowley group were expelled from the SLL along with up to 500 other members of the SLL. Some of them went on to form the Workers Socialist League (WSL) of which Thornett was the senior leader. An international tendency of groups expelled from Healy's ICFI existed for a period known as the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee. 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... The Workers Socialist League (WSL) was a Trotskyist political party in the United Kingdom. ...

However the WSL foundered after losing members to the Spartacist League and gradually losing its basis of support as industrial struggle tailed off in the late 1970s. The WSL fused with Sean Matgamna's group the I-CL in 1981, only to leave again in 1983 somewhat smaller. The Spartacist League (Spartakusbund in German) was a left-wing Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during and just after the politically volatile years of World War I. It was founded by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (nicknamed Red Rosa) along with others such as Clara Zetkin. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... Sean Matgamna, also known as John OMahony (the English language equivalent of Sean Matgamna) is a Trotskyist theorist. ... 1981 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1983 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Thornett's group later joined the Labour Party and went by the name of 'the Socialist Group' until it fused with the International Group to form the International Socialist Group (ISG). Thornett is now leader of the ISG which is affiliated to the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. The Labour Party is the principal centrist/centre-left political party in the United Kingdom (see British politics). ... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... The International Socialist Group are a small Trotskyist group based in the United Kingdom. ... The United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) is the largest Trotskyist international organisation. ...

Thornett eventually lead the ISG eventually out of the Labour Party and it joined the Socialist Alliance then, bucking the trend amoung small far-left groups, supported its absorption into the Respect Coalition. Thornett sits on Respect's National Council. He is the author of two volumes of autobiography. The Socialist Alliance is a far left electoral alliance in England. ... RESPECT The Unity Coalition is a left wing British political party founded on January 25, 2004 in London. ...

External links

Debate on The European Radical Left A reply to Alex Callinicos. Article by Alan Thornett contrasting the ISG's approch to Respect to the SWP's Alex Callinicos Alex Callinicos (born 1950 in South Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)) is a Marxist intellectual and a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party. ...