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Tony Mulhearn – hailed throughout his political life as a man of principle and a true champion of the working class – was one of Liverpool’s foremost Militant figureheads in the turbulent 1980s.

The lifelong campaigner , who lived in Childwall and has died aged 80, was president of the District Labour Party, a trade unionist, political activist, councillor and parliamentary candidate (he stood, unsuccessfully, for Labour in Crosby in 1979 and was due to stand in Toxteth before boundary changes in 1981).

In his later years, he was vice-chair of, and the media and publicity officer for, the Merseyside Pensioners’ Association.

He also stood for Mayor of Liverpool (under the TUSC – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition – banner) in 2012, later saying: “I thought that was extremely important. I knew I wouldn’t win, but it was a platform to advance alternative policies. The Merseyside Pensioners Association is very active – I felt it was important to not just discuss issues relating to pensioners, but to campaign on issues which affect our children, grandchildren and their children to come. I have often described MPA as the memory of the working class.”

(Image: submitted pic)

Above all, he was a family man. Tony, who was last year diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), an irreversible condition in which the lungs become scarred and breathing becomes increasingly difficult, had seven children, 11 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. His beloved wife, Maureen, passed away in January last year aged 72. They had been married for nearly 53 years.

He told me earlier this year: “My family is extremely important – family is the rock that keeps us sane and grounded. My family has been so supportive since Maureen died. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have survived myself. Maureen was always supportive – she believed in the cause.”

Tony was elected onto Liverpool city council in 1984 and, as one of the rebel “Liverpool 47” Labour councillors who took on the Thatcher government, his political life throughout the 1980s was a rollercoaster ride – one which hit the buffers in March 1987.

By this time he and his colleagues had been suspended from holding public office for five years and expelled from the Labour Party. Two years earlier, a tub-thumping speech by then Labour leader Neil Kinnock at the party’s annual conference had villified the “generals of gesture” and “Tendency tacticians”.

Kinnock declared that “a Labour council, a LABOUR council” had sent taxis “scuttling round a city to hand out redundancy notices to its own workers.”

The Labour leader then launched an inquiry into the activities of Militant in Liverpool, appointing Peter Kilfoyle – then Labour’s North West Regional Organiser and who later became MP for Walton – as his “Witchfinder General.”

In 2009, Tony faced the same open heart surgery fellow campaigner Ricky Tomlinson underwent in 2007. Back then he reflected on his 50 years as a political campaigner. Due to the kind(ish) words of famous enemies, he had seemed in danger of losing his left-wing credibility.

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock set the ball rolling in 2005 when he told me: “Mulhearn was totally misguided, but sincere. I’ve always distinguished between him and Hatton because Mulhearn came to the (expulsion) hearings, represented himself, took his medicine and went back to work.”

While, in 2008, Sir Trevor Jones, the former Liberal leader of Liverpool city council, said of the Militants: “Of all of them, the one I respected the most was Tony Mulhearn. I didn’t agree with his views but I think he held them sincerely. Hatton was just a big-headed egotist.”

Tony, who became a member of the Socialist Party (the successor to Militant) and Liverpool’s spokesman for the Campaign For A New Workers’ Party, said in response: “Everyone likes compliments, but you’ve got to ponder who’s giving the compliment.

“It happened with Tony Benn, and what people often mean is ‘Now he’s out of mainstream politics, he’s no longer a threat’. While I may be outside the mainstream, people like me who have my views will, some time, have power again – then their attitudes will be different.”

The former baker, tailor, trainee ship steward, apprentice cabinet maker, apprentice printer, printer, Ford worker, taxi driver, part-time lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University and IT support co-ordinator in the department for work and pensions in Warrington, who was brought up in Fontenoy Street and Leeds Street in Liverpool, could clearly trace the roots of his political interest.

He said: “When you become involved in industry and join a union things become clearer about the way society is organised, with capitalism on one side and the working class on the other. And there’s this constant struggle of working people to improve their living standards and the struggle of bosses to amass profits.”

Tony worked as a private hire taxi driver for Davy Liver Cabs, off and on, between 1991 and 2001, and during part of this period he juggled this role with taking a combined Social Sciences degree, incorporating history, economics and politics, at Liverpool John Moores University. He was awarded his 2.1 honours degree in 1996, having achieved a first-class pass for his dissertation (on Trotsky!) and been acclaimed as the “most meritorious mature student”.

In his later life, as well as his work and being immersed in various campaigns, Tony remained a prolific letter-writer to the ECHO, explaining: “I have disagreed with the ECHO over many things over many years but it is the big public forum on Merseyside and we should use it to raise the important issues facing working class people.”

Tony also had a great sense of humour. He was, naturally, often mentioned in the same breath as his old comrade Derek Hatton, and so I once thought it only fair to ask him if he’d ever fancied following Degsy’s lead – and having twice-yearly Botox treatments.

He just laughed. Very loudly.

After 60 years of political activism, he recently wrote his memoirs –Tony Mulhearn: The Making Of A Liverpool Militant.

When speaking to me about the book, I asked Tony what he believed were his greatest political achievements? He said: “Being a key part of the great political movement in this city in the 1980s. Between 1983-1987, I had the privilege of being president of the District Labour Party and a city councillor, which gave me the opportunity of not only participating in the party but making sure the decisions taken by the party were implemented by the council.”

And his biggest political disappointments? “I have to say being expelled from the Labour Party by Kinnock and his cohorts in 1986. Around the same time, my trade (I was a printing man – a time-served hot metal compositor) also disappeared. This also meant an end to my trade union activities. The death knell for the industry came when (Rupert) Murdoch moved his printing and publishing works to Wapping.

“It was traumatic to be thrown out of office by (Margaret) Thatcher and the district auditor, out of the party by Kinnock and out of my job by Murdoch. But to upset Thatcher, Kinnock and Murdoch – I must have been doing something right!”

And asked to describe today’s political scene, he said: “Obviously we have a neo-liberal government in office driven by the objective of transferring public wealth into the pockets of a tiny minority. And, sadly, the opposition, both from the TUC and Labour, has been pathetic.

“There has been no real organised response. Locally, we have a Labour council – a LABOUR council – which is just passing on every single cut demanded by the Tories without a flicker of opposition.”