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Mulhearn stood as a [[TUSC]] candidate for [[Directly elected mayor of Liverpool|Mayor of Liverpool]]<ref>Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, Local Election Candidates 2012 http://www.tusc.org.uk/press110412.php</ref> on a "6 point programme to defend the working class of Liverpool from cuts to jobs and services"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/apr/03/liverpool-mayor-election-tony-mulheard-trade-union-socialist-coalition|title=Standing to defend Liverpool from the cuts|first=Tony|last=Mulhearn|date=3 April 2012|website=the Guardian}}</ref> He came fifth, ahead of the Conservative candidate.
Mulhearn stood as a [[TUSC]] candidate for [[Directly elected mayor of Liverpool|Mayor of Liverpool]]<ref>Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, Local Election Candidates 2012 http://www.tusc.org.uk/press110412.php</ref> on a "6 point programme to defend the working class of Liverpool from cuts to jobs and services"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/apr/03/liverpool-mayor-election-tony-mulheard-trade-union-socialist-coalition|title=Standing to defend Liverpool from the cuts|first=Tony|last=Mulhearn|date=3 April 2012|website=the Guardian}}</ref> He came fifth, ahead of the Conservative candidate.


Liverpool lost one of its greatest ever working-class leaders, and a great family man, when Tony Mulhearn passed away at the age of 80 on 7 October.

Tony was in many ways born a class fighter. The appalling poverty of the Liverpool slums, which endured longer than in many other cities, were something that stayed with Tony and he often spoke about when reflecting on how struggle could change the everyday conditions of working-class people.

Tony became a supporter of Militant in the 1960s and always remained a supporter of it and then a member of the Socialist Party. The correctly-applied ideas of Marxism once welded with the determination of fighters like Tony and others, laid the basis for the huge struggles of the 1970s which finally overcame the blight of religious sectarianism in the city. They also prepared the epic confrontation of the city council with the Thatcher government 1983-87, in which Tony was the leading figure. As president of the District Labour Party Tony led the body which brought together the massed forces of the city’s working-class, women and youth organisations, with up to 500 delegates attending meetings. On the council, while others played prominent roles it was undoubtedly Tony’s ideas and acumen which steered it at its best.

This was a mass struggle with organised workers at its centre and drawing in all other forces of the oppressed through union and community organisations and particularly a mass Labour Party. The council was accountable to this movement and fighting and negotiating on its behalf. Thatcher was compelled to retreat, concede tens of £millions in funding, and the council proceeded to build thousands of homes, construct a wide range of community facilities, and create thousands of jobs. Ultimately the movement was defeated not by Thatcher but by its isolation orchestrated by the cowards on the right of the Labour party elsewhere and nationally, above all the loathsome party leader Neil Kinnock.

This has not been forgotten by the Liverpool working-class, and on Merseyside more generally. Tony would be regularly approached in the street by people who remembered his role and still had unflinching respect. But Tony never let this go to his head and once admitted to me how he sometimes felt awkward at being treated like a celebrity. Fierce in his beliefs and staunch in his views, Tony could also surprise you with his modesty. He loathed flaunting of personality and ego.

In 2011 Tony was unsure whether or not he wanted to run for the newly-created post of executive mayor the following year. Then he heard the infamous epithet from Labour’s candidate the current mayor Anderson, “I’m not old Labour or new Labour, I’m Joe Labour”, and his mind was made up! Throughout that campaign, the long memory of working-class people for the leader of the struggle which had delivered so much was clear. If the election had been held only on the poorer north side of the city, Tony would have come second. TUSC at that point was becoming the left alternative to Labour in the city and Tony personified the political link with the earlier mass struggles and the new situation.

Tony was always a trade union man. His formative years in the print industry and the experience of the hugely powerful industrial unions gave him an insight into the labour movement which remained relevant. As the working world changed and Tony ended up working in the civil service, he always sought to understand and discuss the changes in this situation and what it meant for the tasks of the unions and Marxists within them. Tony led, and contributed to, many an important discussion on these questions. In his retired years Tony was a very active member of the Merseyside Pensioners Association, continuing to apply that experience. “You always move a motion Hughie”, he’d say, “otherwise no-one knows what’s been agreed”. Good advice which he applied every week, even when ill producing a motion for other comrades to put forward. Tony’s press releases on behalf of the MPA excoriated enemies of the working class and expressed the enthusiasm felt by many for the potential opened up in the Labour Party by Corbyn’s election as leader, if only this was carried through by the deselection of Labour councillors and MPs locally.

Tony was a fine human being. Warm and friendly, generous and thoughtful, and a tremendous family man. He’d always buy a poorer comrade a drink, or stick up for the younger comrades if he thought he needed to. The love felt for Tony by his many children, grand-children and great-grand-children was obvious to anyone who met them. The tragic passing of Tony’s wife, Maureen, in 2018 and his subsequent illness limited what Tony could do physically in the last year or so. But he remained passionately articulate about what he thought and saw as the tasks of the day, and determined to do his best to discuss these with everyone and push forward the struggle even an inch.

Tragically Tony passed just before the launch of his autobiographY. If Tony was still with us he would say that it’s not about him, it’s about other comrades striving to do the same. That humble determination to fight for a better socialist world.

Tony joined "Socialist Alternative" in Britain shorty before his death.
==References==
==References==
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[[Category:Politicians from Liverpool]]
[[Category:Politicians from Liverpool]]
[[Category:Socialist Party (England and Wales) members]]
[[Category:Socialist Party (England and Wales) members]]
[{Category: Socialist Alternative (Britain)

Revision as of 22:42, 8 October 2019

Anthony Mulhearn (24 January 1939 – 7 October 2019)[1][2] was a British political and trade union campaigner known for being a prominent member of the Socialist Party and its predecessor, the Militant tendency. A native of Liverpool, Mulhearn was a member of the city council from 1984 to 1987 and also held the key role during this time of President of the District Labour Party. With Peter Taaffe, he co-authored a book detailing the struggle of the Liverpool city council called Liverpool: A City that Dared to Fight (ISBN 9781870958004). Mulhearn's memoirs were recently published as The Making Of A Liverpool Militant.[3]

Early life

Mulhearn was brought up in the downtown Fontenoy Street and Leeds Street area of Everton, Liverpool, and attended Holy Cross School and Bishop Goss Secondary Modern school[4] before working variously as a baker, tailor, trainee ship steward, apprentice cabinet maker, printer, ship's printer with Canadian Pacific, Ford worker, taxi driver, part-time lecturer and civil servant.[1] He joined the Labour Party in 1963 [5] and stood as the Labour candidate for the constituency of Crosby in the 1979 general election.[4]

Municipal affairs

Mulhearn's involvement with municipal affairs began in March 1980 when he became President of the Liverpool District Labour Party, a body which was responsible for overseeing the activities of Labour councillors on Liverpool city council. In June 1981 he was selected as Labour Party candidate for Liverpool Toxteth,[5] although due to boundary changes the constituency was abolished before the next general election. Mulhearn was elected to Liverpool city council in May 1984 from St Mary's ward.[6]

Mulhearn was a leading member of the controlling group on the city council, and in 1985 played a key role in the budgeting crisis which affected the council. He led the council delegation negotiating with the unions representing council staff when the council, running out of money, decided to issue redundancy notices to its entire workforce in September 1985.[7] Mulhearn insisted that the council would succeed in getting extra funds from the Government, making the notices unnecessary; he also said that Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock had been speaking "from a position of profound ignorance" when he condemned the move.[8] Shortly afterward Mulhearn stood for the Labour candidacy in Knowsley North, attempting to deselect sitting MP Robert Kilroy-Silk.[9]

In 1986, Mulhearn was expelled from the Labour Party following a series of hearings which the party had begun into the involvement of Militant tendency supporters. He remained a councillor until March 1987, when the House of Lords rejected the appeals of 47 Liverpool councillors against the district auditor's finding of 'wilful misconduct' in the council's delayed setting of its budget in 1985.[1]

Subsequent campaigning

After leaving Liverpool City Council Mulhearn wrote (together with Peter Taaffe) an account of the period when supporters of Militant were leading the council, published as Liverpool: A City that Dared to Fight in 1988.[10] He worked as a taxi driver from 1991 to 2001, and also studied part-time at Liverpool John Moores University for a combined Social Sciences degree (including history, economics and politics). In 1996 he passed with first class honours for his dissertation (on Leon Trotsky), and was given the prize for "most meritorious mature student".[1]

He later worked as an IT support co-ordinator for the Department for Work and Pensions in Warrington, while remaining active in politics as a member of Militant's successor the Socialist Party and a member of the Campaign for a New Workers' Party.[11]

Liverpool Mayor Election 2012

Mulhearn stood as a TUSC candidate for Mayor of Liverpool[12] on a "6 point programme to defend the working class of Liverpool from cuts to jobs and services"[13] He came fifth, ahead of the Conservative candidate.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Paddy Shennan, "Tony Mulhearn - heart of the working class", Liverpool Echo, 23 January 2009.
  2. ^ "Veteran Liverpool political campaigner Tony Mulhearn dies aged 80". 7 October 2019.
  3. ^ "Tony Mulhearn - the life and times of a champion of the working class".
  4. ^ a b "The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1979", p. 86-7.
  5. ^ a b Ian Bradley, "New puritans in pursuit of power", The Times, 10 December 1981, p. 12.
  6. ^ David Walker, "Conciliation: the improbable Mersey sound", The Times, 29 May 1984, p. 14.
  7. ^ Peter Davenport, "Liverpool unions walk out of talks", The Times, 27 September 1985, p. 1.
  8. ^ Hugh Clayton and David Felton, "Liverpool plans to lay off all staff", The Times, 12 October 1985, p. 2.
  9. ^ Michael Cockerell, "Who will win this Merseyside showdown?", The Times, 28 October 1985, p. 12. The attempt was unsuccessful but Kilroy-Silk resigned his seat the following year to move into television presenting.
  10. ^ ISBN 1-870958-00-4.
  11. ^ "BNP bigots retreat under pressure", Campaign for a New Workers' Party, accessed 22 July 2009.
  12. ^ Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, Local Election Candidates 2012 http://www.tusc.org.uk/press110412.php
  13. ^ Mulhearn, Tony (3 April 2012). "Standing to defend Liverpool from the cuts". the Guardian.
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