Left-wing hardliner Derek Hatton has been readmitted to the Labour Party more than 30 years after he was expelled.
Hatton was the ringleader of the Trotskyist Militant tendency in the 1980s which set an illegal budget in Liverpool and caused bitter divisions in the party.
He was thrown out in 1986 but the party's disputes panel is said to have readmitted him last week after he was 'inspired' to return by Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
The news of Hatton's return comes on the same day that seven Labour moderates quit the party in protest at Mr Corbyn's handling of Brexit and anti-Semitism.
Left-wing hardliner Derek Hatton (pictured in 2016) has been readmitted to the Labour Party more than 30 years after he was expelled for his role in the Trotskyist Militant tendency
Mr Hatton, then deputy leader of Liverpool city council, caused a bitter Labour row in 1985 by setting an illegal budget in a challenge to Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government.
He and other members of the Trotskyist group were widely blamed for making the party unelectable during the Thatcher years.
Neil Kinnock's conference speech denouncing Militant in 1985 was hailed as a brave rebuke of the far Left and seen as a turning point in Labour's history.
Kinnock told the party faithful that he would not tolerate the 'grotesque chaos of a Labour council - a Labour council - hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers'.
Hatton and other Militant figures were expelled from the party soon afterwards as Labour moderates gradually took control of the party.
However Hatton said last year he was 'inspired' by Jeremy Corbyn's leadership which has seen the hard Left reassert control over the
