Jim Higgins

["Paul Flewers" <hatchet.job@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have just received the sad news that Jim Higgins, a life-long socialist
militant, has died in hospital after a short but serious illness. Jim, a
Post Office telephone engineer by trade, joined the Communist Party of Great
Britain when quite young, and moved to the Trotskyist movement in the wake
of the events of 1956. He rose to the leadership of the International
Socialists, the group led by Tony Cliff, and became its National Secretary.
He was expelled in the mid-1970s, when Cliff, obeying his (in Jim's immortal
phrase) 'iron whim', dealt with differences in the organisation by expelling
a whole bunch of experienced cadres, including much of the group's
industrial militants. Jim remained a committed socialist to the end, writing
reviews and articles for various magazines and journals, and a book entitled
More Years for the Locust, an account of Cliff's organisation.

I got to know Jim over the last 10 years, and found him a socialist whose
commitment to the cause was matched with a wickedly irreverent sense of
humour that had many comrades, not least me, rolling around laughing. We
will miss him.

Paul F


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