{{Short description|Irish Trotskyist (1934–2021)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} thumb|alt=alt text|Ernie Tate speaking at a meeting in London, 1 February 2014 '''Ernie Tate''' (24 May 1934 – 5 February 2021)<ref name="Star">{{cite news |title=ERNEST (ERNIE) TATE |url=https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?n=ernest-tate-ernie&pid=197761148 |access-date=13 February 2021 |work=Toronto Star |date=13 February 2021}}</ref> was a long-standing supporter and leading member of Trotskyist groups in Canada and the United Kingdom, and a founder in the 1960s of the International Marxist Group and Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in Britain.<ref name="IV">{{cite news |last1=Hearse |first1=Phil |title=A tribute to Ernie Tate |url=https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7029 |access-date=8 February 2021 |work=International Viewpoint |date=8 February 2021}}</ref>
Born on Shankill Road, in Belfast, Northern Ireland to an Ulster Protestant family,<ref name="palmer">{{cite journal |last1=Palmer |first1=Bryan D. |title=Review: A Tate Gallery for the New Left: Portraits, Landscapes, and Abstracts in the Revolutionary Activism of the 1950s and 1960s |journal=Labour / Le Travail |date=Spring 2015 |volume=75 |pages=231–262 |url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/LLT/article/download/24383/28237 |accessdate=April 17, 2019}}</ref><ref name="proyect">{{cite web |last1=Proyect |first1=Louis |title=Ernie Tate, ¡presente! |url=https://louisproyect.org/2021/02/06/ernie-tate-presente/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210206232528/https://louisproyect.org/2021/02/06/ernie-tate-presente/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=6 February 2021 |website=Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist|date=6 February 2021 }}</ref> he received little formal education,<ref name="horowitz">{{cite book |last1=Horowitz |first1=David |title=You're Going to Be Dead One Day: A Love Story |date=2015 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1621574330}}</ref> leaving school at 14 to work at the Belfast Flour Mills as an apprentice machine attendant.<ref name="Bullet">{{cite news |title=In Memory of Ernie Tate (1934-2021): A Life of Revolutionary Activism |url=https://socialistproject.ca/2021/02/in-memory-of-ernie-tate/ |access-date=February 13, 2021 |work=The Bullet|publisher=Socialist Project |date=February 12, 2021}}</ref>
Though Protestant, he became sympathetic to Irish Republicanism after befriending a Catholic co-worker and began thinking of himself as a communist after being on holiday in Paris and encountering and being inspired by left-wing demonstrations celebrating the French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.<ref name="Bullet"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://louisproyect.org/2013/01/22/ernie-tate-and-jess-mckenzie/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140402222022/http://louisproyect.org/2013/01/22/ernie-tate-and-jess-mckenzie/|url-status=usurped|archive-date=2 April 2014|title = Ernie Tate and Jess MacKenzie|date = 22 January 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://vimeo.com/57896670 |title=Ernie and Jess on Vimeo |access-date=2021-02-13 |archive-date=2021-03-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323153505/https://vimeo.com/57896670 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
He worked in the mill until 1955, when he emigrated to Canada at the age of 21.<ref name ="Star"/> Within a year, he was recruited by Ross Dowson into the Canadian section of the Fourth International, after dropping into the Socialist Education League's Toronto Labour Bookstore on Yonge Street (in 1961, the SEL became the League for Socialist Action).<ref name="palmer"/><ref name ="Star"/><ref name="Bullet"/> By 1962, he was joint editor of the ''Socialist Caucus Bulletin'', the newspaper of the socialist caucus of the New Democratic Party.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Palmer |first1=Bryan |title=A communist life: Jack Scott and the Canadian workers movement, 1927-1985 |date=1988 |publisher=Committee of Canadian Labour History |isbn=0969206046 |page=141}}</ref>
In 1960, he was charged with public vandalism after spraypainting "Ban the Bomb" on the side of a plywood and cement fallout shelter at Queen's Park. Unrepentant, he was fined $50.<ref name="Palmer"/>
Tate was sent to British Columbia in the early 1960s, tasked with consolidating the quarrelling factions of the LSA's Vancouver branch.<ref name="Palmer"/>
In 1965, Tate moved from North America to Great Britain on an assignment to work with supporters of the reunified Fourth International to solidify its British section, of which he became a leader, leading to the founding of the International Marxist Group in 1968.<ref>[https://archive.workersliberty.org/publications/readings/trots/militant.html Worker's Liberty website]</ref><ref name="palmer"/> Tate and fellow Canadian Pat Brain worked alongside Bertrand Russell in the Russell Tribunal set up to investigate US war crimes in Vietnam.<ref name="palmer"/>
Tate was hospitalized in 1966 after being allegedly beaten by supporters of Gerry Healy while selling a pamphlet critical of him outside a public meeting of Healy's group. Healy was allegedly present and "essentially supervised" the assault.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Damage Gerry Healy Wrought An interview with Aidan Beatty |url=https://jacobin.com/2024/09/gerry-healy-trotskyism-wrp |access-date=October 1, 2024 |work=Jacobin |date=September 29, 2024}}</ref><ref name="IV"/> The incident became a cause célèbre within the world Trotskyist movement.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/1986/1966interview.html Marxists.org interview]</ref><ref name="Kelly">{{cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=John E. |title=Contemporary Trotskyism : Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain (Routledge Studies in Radical History and Politics) |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317368946 |page=100 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0mJRDwAAQBAJ&q=Contemporary+Trotskyism+:+Parties,+Sects+and+Social+Movements+in+Britain |accessdate=23 April 2019}}</ref> Healy's Socialist Labour League filed lawsuits against ''Peace News'' and ''Socialist Leader'' for repeating the allegations, threatening them with bankruptcy, prompting the two publications to issue retractions and a public apology.<ref>("Two labour movement papers, Labour Leader and Peace News, were obliged to apologise for publishing the details of this incident after Healy threatened to financially bankrupt the papers through legal action") "Workers Revolutionary Party attempt to gag left press", ''Socialist Challenge'', 23 April 1981 https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialist-challenge/sc-n194-apr-23-1981.pdf</ref> <ref>{{cite news |title=What we owe to Ernie Tate |url=https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2021-02-16/what-we-owe-ernie-tate |access-date=1 October 2024 |work=Workers' Liberty |publisher=Alliance for Workers' Liberty |date=16 February 2021}}</ref><ref>"Workers Revolutionary Party attempt to gag left press", ''Socialist Challenge'', 23 April 1981 https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialist-challenge/sc-n194-apr-23-1981.pdf</ref><ref>{{Cite web | title=''Jacobin'' and DSA member Aidan Beatty falsify the so-called “Tate Affair” - World Socialist Web Site | url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/10/01/kifs-o01.html | access-date=2025-08-08 | website=www.wsws.org}}</ref> The incident resulted in Isaac Deutscher, who had previously been a contributor to Healy's publications, summoning both Healy and Tate to his home where he "upbraided" Healy for his alleged thuggery and broke off relations with him.<ref name="palmer"/><ref name="IV"/>
One of Tate's recruits to the IMG was Tariq Ali.<ref name="palmer"/> Ali described Tate as working closely with Pat Jordan, the two being the leading supporters of Pierre Frank's ideas in the UK.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ali |first1=Tariq |title=Street-Fighting Years |date=2016 |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1786636003 |pages=237, 303, 326}}</ref>
Tate was one of two members of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign organising committee for the demonstration against the Vietnam war in London in October 1968 who successfully opposed a proposal to halt the march in Whitehall, which would have caused unnecessary confrontation with the police and a degeneration into violence. He was thus instrumental in ensuring that the 200,000 participants passed through London peacefully, despite dire prognostications in the press and on television (who reported the march but also gave coverage to a simultaneous 5,000-strong violent counter-protest by Maoists attacking the United States Embassy). As a result, opposition to the war grew enormously in Britain at the same time as in the United States.<ref name="palmer"/> At the time of the demonstration, ''The Guardian'' described him as "an able Ulsterman in his early thirties, with unmodishly short dark hair, the black-rimmed spectacles of an advertising executive, and a terse, direct, manner".<ref>{{cite news |title=The word goes out: no martyrs, please |work=The Guardian |date=27 October 1968}}</ref>
Tate was a founder of the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency in 1973.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/fi/1963-1985/usfi/pre-ltt-imt/ltt01.htm Marxists.org]</ref> He returned to Canada in 1969.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sheppard |first1=Barry |title=The Party: The Socialist Workers Party, 1960-1988, Volume 1 |date=2005 |publisher=Resistance Books |isbn=1876646500}}</ref>
Tate's first job in Canada was at Eaton's department store in Toronto which he quit after receiving his first paycheque for only $60. He went on to do factory work at Maple Leaf Milling, Radio Valve, and Amalgamated Electric.<ref name="Palmer">{{cite news |last1=Palmer |first1=Bryan D. |title=The fortunate Marxist: Ernie Tate (1934-2021) |url=https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-fortunate-marxist-ernie-tate-1934-2021 |access-date=February 28, 2021 |work=Canadian Dimension |date=February 15, 2021}}</ref> Returning to Canada, he was passed over for a paid position with the LSA, and instead found work as a stationary engineer with Canada Packers and became a union steward for the Packinghouse Workers Union.<ref name="Palmer"/>
Tate earned a diploma in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in 1975, winning academic prizes for his essays, and joined Domtar where he became chief engineer.<ref name="Palmer"/> He joined Toronto Hydro in 1977 as a stationary engineer, later working in positions in marketing, energy management and conservation positions at the electric utility. During the 1990s, the utility assigned him to Toronto City Hall where he was responsible for liaising between the utility and the municipal government. He was chief steward during a successful 1989 strike and then was vice-president of CUPE Local One for years before his retirement in 1995, but went on to organize a successful against the provincial government of Mike Harris's attempt to privatize Ontario Hydro.<ref name="Star" /><ref name="Palmer"/>
In 2014, the first volume of his memoir, ''Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s & 60s'', was published.<ref>{{cite web |title=Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s & 60s. Volume 1, Canada 1955-1965. |url=http://resistancebooks.org/product/57/ |website=Resistance Books |date=24 June 2014 |accessdate=23 April 2019}}</ref><ref name="Sheppard2">{{cite journal |last1=Sheppard |first1=Barry |title=A Memoir of Life in Struggle |journal=Against the Current |date=2015 |volume=30 |issue=179 |pages=41–42 |url=http://search.ebscohost.com.rp.nla.gov.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=110604363&site=ehost-live |accessdate=23 April 2019}}</ref> After reading the book, David Horowitz, who had known Tate in the 1960s when both men were anti-war activists, struck up a dialogue with him, but noted that their strong political differences barred any friendship.<ref name="horowitz" />
In 2019, Tate was the featured speaker at an international conference on the life and work of Leon Trotsky held in Havana, Cuba.<ref name="Palmer"/>
In November 2020, Tate provided witness testimony to the Undercover Policing Inquiry in London. Ailing, he was unable to attend in person and provided his testimony in writing. His answers to questions about police surveillance and infiltration of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and the anti-Vietnam War protests it organised in 1967 and 1968 were read into the inquiry's record.<ref>{{cite web |title=First Witness Statement of Ernest Tate |url=https://www.ucpi.org.uk/publications/first-witness-statement-of-ernest-tate/ |website=Undercover Policing Inquiry |access-date=8 February 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Davis |first1=Margaret |title=Shadowy police unit set up amid 1960s Vietnam war protests |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/shadowy-police-unit-set-up-amid-1960s-vietnam-war-protests-39696753.html |access-date=8 February 2021 |work=Belfast Telegraph |date=2 November 2021}}</ref>
He died from pancreatic cancer on 5 February 2021.<ref name="proyect"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20071017124320/http://www.isg-fi.org.uk/spip.php?article286 The British Left and the Anti-Imperialist Struggle], Socialist Outlook * [https://www.socialistproject.ca/relay/r11_Mexico.html Resistance on the Mexican "Riviera"] *[https://socialistproject.ca/2021/02/in-memory-of-ernie-tate/ In Memory of Ernie Tate (1934-2021): A Life of Revolutionary Activism] obituary by John Riddell * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUfH4hjxbng Ernie Tate speaking on the background to the establishment of the IMG] * {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20210206232528/https://louisproyect.org/2021/02/06/ernie-tate-presente/ Ernie Tate, ¡presente!]}} an obituary and appreciation by Louis Proyect, includes video of an interview with Ernie Tate and Jess McKenzie *[https://vimeo.com/57896670 "Ernie and Jess"] video of a 2011 interview conducted by Louis Proyect * [https://socialistresistance.org/a-tribute-to-ernie-tate A Tribute to Ernie Tate], obituary by Phil Hearse of the International Marxist Group *[https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-fortunate-marxist-ernie-tate-1934-2021?fbclid=IwAR199rUMBnI1qnFFsfifPgImEGgd5rpfx63ifiarrDpNBbSJQYEj5hh0CdM The fortunate Marxist: Ernie Tate (1934-2021)], Bryan Palmer in ''Canadian Dimension''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tate, Ernie}} Category:1934 births Category:2021 deaths Category:Canadian Trotskyists Category:International Marxist Group members Category:Emigrants from Northern Ireland to Canada Category:20th-century non-fiction writers from Northern Ireland Category:Anti–Vietnam War activists Category:Canadian anti–nuclear weapons activists Category:Toronto Metropolitan University alumni Category:Trade unionists from Ontario Category:Canadian mechanical engineers Category:Canadian Union of Public Employees people Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer