“nowadays the most reactionary grouping in Great Britain… These pompous authorities, pedants and haughty, high-falutin’ cowards are sytematically poisoning the labour movement, clouding the consciousness of the proletariat and paralysing its will. It is only thanks to them that Toryism, Liberalism, the Church, the monarchy, the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie continue to survive and even suppose themselves to be fairly in the saddle.”

Leon Trotsky, quoted in J. Callaghan, 1987, The Far Left in British Politics. p.10.