Peter Taaffe

Peter Taaffe
Taaffe in 2006
General Secretary of the Socialist Party
In office 1997–2020
Deputy	Hannah Sell
Succeeded by	Hannah Sell
General Secretary of Militant Labour
In office 1992–1997
General Secretary of Militant
In office 1964–1992
Preceded by	Position established
Personal details
Born	1942 (age 81–82) Birkenhead, Cheshire, England
Political party	Socialist Party
Children	Nancy Taaffe

Peter Taaffe (born April 1942) is a British Marxist Trotskyist political activist and journalist. He was the general secretary of the Socialist Party of England and Wales from its founding until 2020 and was a member of the International Executive Committee of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI).^[1]

Taaffe was the founding editor of the Trotskyist Militant newspaper in 1964,^[2] and became known as a leading member of the entryist Militant group. Taaffe was expelled from the Labour Party in 1983, along with four other members of Militant's editorial board

Taaffe was influential in the policy decisions of Liverpool City Council of 1983–1987, according to the council's deputy leader Derek Hatton,^[3] in the formation of the Militant tendency's policy regarding the Poll Tax in 1988–1991,^[4] and the Militant tendency's "Open Turn" from the Labour Party in the late 1980s, becoming general secretary of Militant's eventual successor, the Socialist Party in 1997. He retired as general secretary after the party's February 2020 congress but remains on the party's executive committee as political secretary.^[5]