Deputy leader of Liverpool City Council in 1983. Hatton was the most vocal, prominent member of the council's leadership and a member of Militant tendency, a Trotskyist organisation then pursuing entryist tactics within the Labour Party. Hatton was later expelled from the Labour Party in 1986 for belonging to the Militant tendency, which Hatton argued was a legitimate Marxist organisation within the Labour Party.
After his expulsion from the party, Hatton pursued a career in the media, presenting a show on radio station Talk Sport, and appearing on such television programmes as Have I Got News for You. Hatton even began modelling menswear.
Hatton presented the lunchtime phone-in on 105.4 Century FM when it launched in 1998, titled 'The Degsy Debate'. The BBC2 fly-on-the-wall documentary Trouble at the Top followed the station's launch, and Hatton's training. In the 1990s, he worked as Talk Radio's morning phone-in presenter. In 1996, he was the subject of a BBC documentary, My Brilliant Career.
Derek Hatton now works as a motivational speaker and is chairman of the new media company Rippleffect.
It was reported in the Liverpool Daily Post in May 2007 that Hatton had recently rejoined the Labour Party and intended to seek selection as a parliamentary candidate in the North West. Hatton also said that his ambition is to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and that he would run for the office in the summer in the unlikely event of him being able to enter parliament via a by-election. Hatton made clear that he is no longer a Trotskyist, but maintains that he remains firmly on the left of the party, expressing his belief that Labour has to abandon 'New Labour' ideology (or 'neo-Tory', as Hatton puts it) and return to its traditional values.
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