Continuing a brief look at the pre-war ILP and Trotskyist influences within it…
Here we have a pamphlet produced by E. Robertson of Holborn and Finsbury ILP entitled Conversations With Trotsky. This was based on an interview with Trotsky “the greatest living Marxist” conducted by Robertson in Norway in November 1935.
Questions put to Trotsky were on such matters as how the ILP should relate to the Labour Party and the CPGB and whether or not it should allow its own internal groups.
It is headed “For Party Circulation Only”
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Next we have an issue of “Socialist Herald” a four page paper published by 
Liverpool ILP Federation in March 1935. Haded “Whither the LUCC” it discusses the movement of unemployed workers within the city and the relationship with the Labour Party.
Of interest is the fact that the Liverpool ILP secretary at the time was Reg Collins. Collins was the brother of Bessie Houghton, a Trotskyist and the partner of Albert Houghton. It is not know whether Reg Collins was himself associated with the Trotskyist movement.
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Finally the agenda for the conference of the No 9 Division of the ILP which was held in my home town of Chorley in February 1936.
Motions were raised for a programme of immediate demands, on the Means Test and on the “War Danger” with competing submissions from the National Committee, Bootle, Salford and Old Trafford branches.
Kirkdale branch puts forwards two motions on the United Front. The first calling for the general application of the UF tactic within the workers movement whilst the second calls for the ending of united front work with the Communist Party!
East Liverpool branch puts forward a resolution calling for the ILP to link up with the forces then in discussion to form the Fourth International.
At the end of the document we find nominations for various positions including D(on) James for Divisional Chairman and H(enry) Cund for member of the Divisional Council…
Splits and Fusions 