A far-left group passed motions at its conference outlining plans to infiltrate the Labour party, detailed in documents that prove Trotskyist groups were targeting younger party members, Tom Watson said.

Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, said it was a straw man argument for the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to claim that he was tarring all new party members as revolutionary socialists, but said evidence of the infiltration of local parties and youth groups was in the public domain.



He highlighted documents published by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), a small Trotskyist group banned by Labour under its previous incarnation of Socialist Organiser. AWL passed several motions at its last conference in November 2015 on ways in which members could join Labour and influence the party’s policies.

Labour rules bar any supporters of rival political parties from joining, but following Corbyn’s election as leader, in September 2015, AWL applied to the Electoral Commission to be deregistered as political party so its members could join Labour.

An AWL conference motion called after the Corbyn surge said the group should “focus our activity there on drawing in, organising, propagandising among, and recruiting among, the new people (especially the new young people) mobilised by the Corbyn surge”.

The motion added: “This dictates a priority for building constituency Young Labour groups. Youth work is particularly important for renewing the movement and for convincing a new generation of socialists. In as many places as possible we will seek to build local Young Labour groups.”

Another motion submitted to the conference on student activity said there were opportunities for the group to recruit members from leftwing students who were enthused by Corbyn. The AWL should “organise and politically hegemonise these people, and Labour clubs on campuses”, the motion said.

It also said: “We should aim to break the right quickly, and teach those around us not to be intimidated by the rightwing’s longer years of service and apparently superior ‘Labour knowledge’ or prestige.”

The July issue of the group’s newspaper, Solidarity, led with the headline “ Flood into the Labour party”. A leading article said: “To continue, to expand, to organise this flood of new people into the Labour party, and also out of it, to organise constituency Young Labour groups, is the activity now which will make most difference for the future.”

Watson first raised concerns, in a Guardian interview, that hard-left organisations were attempting to control local parties and student groups. He said there were “some old hands twisting young arms” among people who had joined the party to support Corbyn.

The Labour leader hit back at Watson in an Observer interview on Sunday, saying: “I just ask Tom to do the maths: 300,000 people have joined the Labour party – at no stage in anyone’s most vivid imagination are there 300,000 sectarian extremists at large in the country who have suddenly descended on the Labour party.”

Watson denied having suggested that all new Labour members were Trotskyists. “I have never claimed that hundreds of thousands of new joiners are revolutionary socialists, and those who claim I did are attacking a straw man,” he said. “I simply want to ensure that organisations like the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, who have instructed all their members to join the Labour party and target our youth sections for recruitment, are dealt with under our rules. It’s undeniable that this is happening. AWL even published these instructions on their website.”

AWL has repeatedly attempted to distance itself from Militant, which caused deep internal strife for Labour in the 1980s, and its successor group, the Socialist party.

In a post on the AWL website, the group said it was “not a closed, secretive sect” and had only 120 full members. “Tom Watson knows very well that we are a small group among half a million Labour members. This is the extent of the Trotskyist threat,” it said. “And yet, in the end, Tom Watson – despite his intention – has half a point. We are a potential problem for people like [him]. Not because we manipulate behind the scenes, but because our message is becoming increasingly popular in the [Labour] party. We are serious Marxists, serious about ideas and consistent about their application.”

Corbyn should defend the right of its members to join Labour, the AWL said. “The party should only require that socialists back Labour candidates in elections. The AWL backs Labour in elections,” the group said.

The Labour leader told the Observer that he had not encountered any “entryists” during his time as Labour leader. “I want people to join for good motives,” he said. “But if they have changed their political views or developed their political views, then surely that is a good thing.”