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Tony Mulhearn, one of the leaders of Liverpool’s Militant tendency in the 1980s, is to stand for Parliament at the 2015 General Election.

Mr Mulhearn, one of the leading figures of the Labour council that ran the city between 1983 and 1987, will be standing for The Trades Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the Riverside constituency in the General Election in May.

He was described as “one of the masterminds of the Militancy through his role as president of the District Labour Party”.

TUSC was set-up in 2010 “to enable trade unionists, community campaigners and socialists to stand candidates against the pro-austerity establishment parties”.

Mr Mulhearn said the party had 124 candidates standing across the country in the General Election and more than 1,000 in the local elections - while in Liverpool they will be contesting 24 of the 30 wards.

He said: “I am a member of the socialist party of which Militant was the predecessor.

“We recognise the need to campaign for an alternative to new Labour.”

He said Labour in Liverpool have been “very lucky” and said their success has been “based on a shrinking proportion of the population”.

He added: “We are targeting the 70% of people who didn’t vote.

“And if we get the same publicity as UKIP, who are splattered all over the media, and the same high profile as the Greens, then there is a possibility of a break-through for TUSC.”

Other TUSC candidates include Peter Glover, who will be challenging Peter Dowd for departing MP Joe Benton's seat in Bootle, and Dave Walsh who will be taking on Labour’s Luciana Berger in Wavertree.