Comrade Dave Hyland, a leading figure in the British Trotskyist movement, died on December 8, 2013, at the age of 66. Hyland had taken up the fight, in solidarity with the International Committee, against the attempt of the central leadership of the Workers Revolutionary Party to liquidate the British and international movement in 1985-86. In the years following the split with the Healy-Banda-Slaughter leadership and the breakup and disintegration of the WRP, Hyland had been the national secretary of the International Communist Party and its successor organization, the Socialist Equality Party (UK), before retiring due to ill health.

Hyland’s decision in October 1985 to contact the Workers League in the United States, after finally having the opportunity to read the criticisms of the WRP leadership that had been made by its national secretary, David North, played a decisive role in maintaining the continuity of British Trotskyism in the face of the degeneration of the WRP central leadership.

As the obituary article in the WSWS noted, “Dave represented all that was best, indeed noble, in the British working class. He was a man of indomitable courage and deeply held principles, ready to give everything, while demanding nothing for himself in return, in the struggle for socialism. He will be remembered with pride and respect.”