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After years of being seen as youthful zealots playing in the sandbox of extremism, the Marxist militants are now viewed with true concern. Said former Prime Minister Harold Wilson: "I share the nausea of a majority seeing that claque of ultra-left thugs raising their clenched fists." Labor's Deputy Party Leader Denis Healey observed, "The time has come to say to those who are wrecking our movement now what Clem Attlee said to those who tried to play the same game before the election of 1945: 'A period of silence from you would be welcome.' "
No such silence is likely. Though militant activists probably number no more than 10,000—less than 5% of Labor's 220,000-strong party membership—they have penetrated all levels of British political life. They range from the elected Members of Parliament who serve on the party's national executive committee to veteran Marxist union leaders; from the polytechnic-educated civil servants of the left's ideological front, Militant Tendency, to the radical leaders of local parties and the rhetoric-spewing Young Socialists, the tireless proselytizing foot soldiers of the movement. Though their roles vary, the players on the leftist stage equal one another in stridency and aggressiveness. The left's chief pillars:
The Standardbearer. Labor M.P. and former Cabinet Minister Tony Benn, though he refuses to label himself a Marxist, has supported the militants at every turn. The meticulously courteous and aristocratic Benn, who sips tea from an earthenware mug as a gesture to the working people he has chosen to represent, insists that "capitalism is a spent force." In a bold attempt to position himself to take over as party leader after Michael Foot, Benn is challenging moderate Deputy Leader Healey for the party's No. 2 post. The showdown promises to be a bitter one. Radical socialism, Benn argues, "is not some new thing, not a foreign import that comes in by courtesy of Mr. Brezhnev. It's part of our tradition." Benn defends unilateral nuclear disarmament on the grounds that "we do not believe that an American President, whom we did not elect and cannot remove, should have the power of peace and war by firing missiles from our airfields." Says he: "It is time to make it clear where the Labor Party stands."