1. Thomas Gerard Healy was an Irish-born British political activist, a co-founder of the International Committee of the Fourth International and the leader of the Socialist Labour League and later the Workers Revolutionary Party.
19 Facts About Gerry Healy
1. 2.
Gerry Healy soon joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, but then left to join the Trotskyist Militant Group in 1937.
3.
Gerry Healy then left to become one of the founders of the Workers International League, led by Ted Grant, Jock Haston and Ralph Lee.
4.
Gerry Healy was in the group when it fused with the Revolutionary Socialist League to form the Revolutionary Communist Party but grew closer to the leadership of the Fourth International, effectively the leadership of the American Socialist Workers Party, and their representative in Britain, Sam Gordon.
5.
In 1953, Healy joined the wing of the Fourth International led in part by James P Cannon after the FI split into two competing wings.
6.
Gerry Healy was excluded from the Streatham Constituency Labour Party, by which time the local party had been suspended, and the neighbouring Norwood Labour Party was in the process of being re-organised because of the activities of SLL activists.
7.
Gerry Healy was known to have punched members of the party's central committee while theoretical discussions were in progress.
8.
In late October 1985, Gerry Healy was expelled from the WRP.
9.
Gerry Healy described the allegations as a smokescreen for those who had become disappointed with revolutionary politics following the defeat of the miners' strike, although the involvement of the WRP in the strike was reportedly minimal.
10.
Gerry Healy denounced her former colleague: "This is part of a political frame-up by Mr Banda who wants to dissolve the WRP because he has moved to the right".
11.
One such fragment produced a version of their daily paper headlined "Gerry Healy Expelled", while Gerry Healy's WRP produced a totally different version.
12.
Gerry Healy's WRP continued until what he saw as unconstitutional manoeuvres by the Torrance leadership led him to form another new group.
13.
Gerry Healy kept his movement out of the support committees which backed the NUM.
14.
Gerry Healy's was a sectarian body, it offered little to the miners and it made minimal gains in the strike.
15.
Gerry Healy declared that Mikhail Gorbachev was leading the political revolution in the USSR.
16.
Gerry Healy has often been criticised for the WRP's internal regime, which did not allow members to challenge his ideas or policies.
17.
Gerry Healy was depicted as "Frank Hood of the Hoodlums" in Tariq Ali's satire, Redemption.
18.
Gerry Healy married Ellen Knight in December 1941: the couple had a daughter, Mary, and a son, Alan.
19.
Gerry Healy had affairs with Swiss-British Trotskyist Betty Hamilton and with his political secretary Aileen Jennings.