In this episode we talk to Aidan Beatty about his book, The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism. We discuss the history of the Socialist Labour League and Workers’ Revolutionary Party in the UK; the role of the party and their Galway-born leader, Gerry Healy, in Trotskyism; the implosion of the party in 1985 with allegations of sexual abuse against Healy in a context of an already diminished Left; and responses to Aidan’s book.

Aidan is a lecturer in history at Carnegie Mellon University and President of the American Conference for Irish Studies. He is currently writing a book about capitalism and Irish nationalism and is also co-editing, with Brian Hanley, a forthcoming edited collection on the global history of the Irish far-right.

The Party is Always Right is published by Pluto Press and available on their website.