In 1976, two-thirds of the ex-Workers Power group's members left in a dispute over Labour Party work and resumed a separate existence.

This campaign proved relatively popular and initially involved a range of figures on the left of the Labour Party who wrote for and supported its newspaper, Socialist Organiser.

The key issue was the Falklands War: most of the former I-CL argued for the defeat of both sides; most of the former WSL supported a victory for Argentina.

By 1983 the paper had become identified with Matgamna's supporters, leading to a split with Labour left politicians (such as Ken Livingstone) over the GLC's policy of increasing rates to offset cuts in central government grants to local councils.

Throughout the 1980s the group had reassessed its politics and reappraised the Third Camp tradition of heterodox and dissident Trotskyists including Max Shachtman and Hal Draper.

A large minority within the organisation, while agreeing with the emphasis on solidarity with Iraqi workers, argued that the group should raise the call for the withdrawal of troops.

[5][independent source needed] These and other positions, including its support for a two-state settlement in Israel/Palestine, have led to other far-left groups characterising the AWL as "imperialist".

In 2009, AWL members were involved in supporting the sit-down strike of Vestas wind turbine factory workers on the Isle of Wight.

[7][independent source needed] The Alliance for Workers' Liberty supported Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 Labour leadership campaign.

[16][17] The AWL also called for a Labour vote in every constituency in the 2024 general election, rejecting independent candidates such as Jeremy Corbyn and Andrew Feinstein as "unaccountable".

[23][independent source needed] Members of the AWL also publish a quarterly socialist feminist magazine, Women's Fightback.

[25][independent source needed] A third series of Workers' Liberty started in February 2006, taking the form of thematic collections issued as inserts within Solidarity.

[26][independent source needed] AWL also publishes occasional books and pamphlets, including The Fate of the Russian Revolution (a collection of "critical Marxist" and Third Camp Trotskyist writings on Soviet Russia, mainly from the Workers' Party and Independent Socialist League tradition), Working-class politics and anarchism (exploring the commonalities and differences between class-struggle anarchist and syndicalist traditions and the AWL's own brand of libertarian-tinged Trotskyism), and Antonio Gramsci: Working-class revolutionary (a short appraisal of the life and thought of the Italian Marxist agitator, organiser, and educator Antonio Gramsci).

It also has links with L'Étincelle, a former fraction of Lutte ouvrière, the Iranian Revolutionary Marxist Tendency,[29] and Turkish group Marksist Tutum.