The official DU guide to far-left in Britain

[Anarcho-Socialist]

I'm a far-leftist myself and I thought I'd provide an introductory guide to what passes for left-wing parties in Britain. I have focused on left-wing parties which organise in Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland).

Never again will you confuse the CPGB with the CPGB-ML or even the CPGB-PCC.
- - - - -

Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL) a tiny group formed from various Trotskyist sects in the 1970s, the AWL was known for its extremely anti-Soviet stance to the extent of backing the US in the Cold War as “the lesser of two evils.” In 2003 it opposed the Iraq War but surprised the rest of the left by supporting the US-occupation.

Communist Party of Britain (CPB) Britain's current “official” communist party. It broke away from the “old” CPGB in 1988 as the latter abandoned Marxism for Third Way politics. The CPB was founded by the editors and supporters of the Morning Star newspaper.

Communist Party of Britain-Marxist-Leninist (CPB-ML) A small Maoist group which split from the CPGB in the 1960s, backing China in the Sino-Soviet split.

Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) Britain's former “official” communist party. Founded in 1920, counted 300,000 members in 1945 and a handful of MPs until 1951. It died a slow death in the 1980s before being wound up in 1991. The party's theoretical journal Marxism Today abandoned Marxism in favour of “New Times” theory in the late 1970s, placing identity politics above economic questions. In the late 1980s the Party's remaining leaders denounced Marxism and went on to found Blarite and neoliberal think tanks.

Communist Party of Great Britain Provisional Central Committee (CPGB-PCC) A small group of Trotskyist ex-Stalinists who publish a gossip rag called “Weekly Worker”. Its raison d'etre is to slag off the rest of the left despite having few members itself (low double-digits), the extent of which is the reason why the rest of the left think the CPGB-PCC are trolls.

Communist Party of Great Britain-Marxist-Leninist (CPGB-ML) A breakaway group from the Socialist Labour Party. Scargill threw this lot out for being too far-left. It's a small group who worship Stalin and think North Korea is a wonderful implementation of socialism. It publishes a monthly journal called Proletarian.

International Socialists Network (ISN) a group of several hundred which broke away from the SWP in 2013 over the mishandling of a rape allegation and have accused the SWP CC of gerrymandering of internal elections and authoritarianism.

New Communist Party (NCP) The Surrey branch of the CPGB left en masse in 1977 due to their dislike of the dominant Eurocommunist faction in the CPGB. They number a small group. Their occasional newspaper is The New Worker.

Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) Ex-Trotskyists who left International Socialists in the 1970s. They remained Trotskyist until the Berlin Wall came down before turning into ultra-leftists who think revolution will come when people stop joining trade unions (which they consider evil). They publish a bimonthly paper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain-Marxist-Leninist (RCPB-ML) A small group of ex-Maoists who idolise Enver Hoxha and backed Albania in the Sino-Albanian split. They publish a weekly paper called Workers' Weekly.

Scottish Socialist Party – a democratic socialist and Scottish nationalist outfit that had a respectable number of SSPs until the Solidarity split divided the left vote.

Socialist Appeal – A small Trotskyist group which split away from the Socialist Party in the 1990s. They maintain a policy of entryism into the Labour Party and harbour aspirations “delusions?” that the unions can win the Labour Party over to Trotskyism.

Socialist Labour Party (SLP) After New Labour got rid off Clause IV from the Labour Party's constitution, Scargill and other trade unionists re-founded a new workers party. The SLP initially received some respectable showings in by-elections but failed to grow beyond ex-NUM circles. Scargill's personality is the driving force for the party.

Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW) Britain's second largest Trotskyist (or soon-to-be largest after the SWP's problems?) party. Formerly known as Militant Labour. Ted Grant is their chief theoretician. They publish a weekly paper called The Socialist. They harbour dreams “delusions?” that all the trade unions will disaffiliate from Labour and join with them in a new workers party. They are the main force behind TUSC. The Socialist Party is seen by the rest of the left as less annoying than the SWP.

Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) Formed in 1904 and still surviving as a small group. It follows an anti-Leninist form of Marxism. It stands in elections as Socialist Party (which denies SPEW the ability to stand under its own name) where it gathers next to zero votes. It believes that revolution will happen through a SPGB government at Westminster (I'm not joking) which is why its detractors refer to SPGB as practising “Impossiblism”. It publishes a magazine called Socialist Standard.

Socialist Workers Party (SWP) Britain's largest Trotskyist party. Formerly known as International Socialists and follows Tony Cliff as its chief thinker. It publishes a weekly paper 'Socialist Worker' which ranges from okish to appalling in terms of quality. The SWP pissed off the rest of the left for leaving the Socialist Alliance and forming RESPECT with George Galloway (before the Gorgeous one pissed off with the money). They are in the dog-house with the rest of the left due to their suspect treatment of female comrades.

Solidarity – Tommy Sheridan fell out with the rest of the SSP and launched this vehicle as a vanity project. It supports Scottish nationalism and Trotskyism. By splitting the far-left vote, Solidarity assured that the SSP would lose all its MSPs.

Workers Power – a small Trotskyist group which split from International Socialists in the 1970s over a theoretical position which is of no interest to someone who isn't a Trotskyist. They publish an eponymously named magazine.

[Ken Burch]

1. "Trotskyist ex-Stalinists"?

Wouldn't that be people who hit THEMSELVES in the head with an ice axe?

[oldironside]

2. I can't be the only one...

... who searched the list for the People's Front Of Judea.

[Ken Burch]

8. Or the Judean People's Front...splitters!

I found the PFJ for you, though:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peoples-Front-Of-Judea/166479366449

[oldironside]

12. Whatever happened to the Popular Front?

Oh, he's over there.

[T_i_B]

3. There's a lot to go on here.

First off, what about the Spartacists? Admittedly I found them to be utter fuitcakes but are they still going? Their paper is called "worker's hammer" if I remember correctly.

Then there's the Workers Revolutionary Party whom Nick Cohen obsessed over in "What's Left". I think their whole raison d'etre is that they want a general strike as the way to spark off a socialist revolution.

When I came across the New Communist Party they were denying the existance of the Gulags in Stalin's Russia. That's something that makes me despise them as much as far right holocaust deniers.

The way I saw it, the Socialist Alliance was an attempt primarily by the SWP to unite the far left, which seemed to me to morph into the RESPECT coalition after most of the Socialist Alliance joined up with George Galloway. That relationship did not end well. These days TUSC is the main attempt to unite the far left.

I think the below link is obligatory when discussing the far left.

I came across the far left quite a bit in the days when I was attending protests against the Iraq war. I'll never regret marching against the Iraq war, but my experiences did nothing whatsoever to convince me of the merits of the far left.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. Socialist Alliance

It didn't naturally morph into RESPECT. The SWP attempted to change the SA from a system where affiliate groups elect delegates to a system where the party with the most members had the most votes.

As the SWP dwarfed the other affiliates this would mean a SWP block vote which would dominate the SA.

Other affiliates left in droves in protest and the SWP wound-up in the SA in favour of RESPECT with George Galloway. While some former SA affiliates joined RESPECT temporarily the new party ended up being a mostly SWP affair.

SPEW who left the SA over what it considered to be SWP control-freakery attempted to found its own project Campaign for a New Workers Party (CNWP). The CNWP didn't go anywhere and SPEW joined forces with the RMT and the CPB in 2009 to fight the European Elections under "No2EU - Yes to Democracy!"

The nucleus of No2EU went on to found TUSC though the CPB opted not to join. After the RESPECT split the SWP fought elections under Left List before opting to join TUSC as an affiliate.

The presence of trade unions in TUSC and the established presence of SPEW has meant that the SWP has not been able to gain primary control of TUSC.

In regards to WRP, there were a number of splits into micro parties though one of which retains the WRP name.

The Sparts still exist as far as I know but I have never come across them or what is left of the WRP. I know that they are very small (even in left terms).

[T_i_B]

7. Never come across the Spartacists?

Consider yourself lucky. Extreme lunatic ideologically blinkered numpties who are a prime example of most of what's wrong with the far left.

[Ken Burch]

9. They were great in the movie, though:

[Anarcho-Socialist]

10. I know some who have encountered them

They are treated with revulsion by the rest of the left.

[LeftishBrit]

4. Thanks for the info

Can't help being wryly amused by the statement that 'The Surrey branch of the CPGB left en masse in 1977'. From my knowledge of Surrey, I doubt that their local branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain would have been huge!

[Anarcho-Socialist]

6. There was about a hundred or so

Small in 1977 though many left-wing parties would love to have those numbers these days!

[fedsron2us]

11. Always had a soft spot for the 'Impossibilist' SPGB

They have always been the oddest as well as the oldest party on the far left and never seem to opt for the easy or trendy line on any issue. They also have resolutely supported the concept of grass roots democracy while opposing the cult of the leader and vanguardism in all its forms. I have always rather enjoyed the way they have managed to skewer so many of the pretensions of the SWP down the years.

Do you still have to take a test to join ?

Never quite worked out how they reconciled that idea with their more egalitarian pronouncements.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

13. Yes you do

They offer a test to ensure that you're entering with the correct "line" to avoid Leninist, anarchist or Trotskyist members joining up and changing the nature of the party.

[fedsron2us]

14. So it is a bit like a Marxist version of Whites Club

No riff-raff need apply.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. So you have, what? 15 far-left parties who have split over trivia

while the Tories wreak havoc on the social fabric of the UK.

Way to go, leftists. All too typical of their overly intellectualized approach.

They can natter about being the revolutionary vanguard all they want, but unless they agree on a set of common principles (I assume that they could agree, for example, on saving the NHS as a public institution free at the point of service, providing adequate public housing, cutting the military back to strictly defensive purposes, and whatever else seems important), cross-endorse one another's candidates, and most importantly, create real bonds with the disenfranchised, they'll still be confined to dark corners of pubs ten years from now.

I once looked in on a discussion group devoted to liberation theology, and the participants were bemoaning the fact that the storefront Pentecostal churches were making such inroads in poor communities while they were not. I felt like butting in and telling them that as long as they wrote entirely in four-syllable jargon and advanced top-down ideas instead of asking poor people what they needed, they'd be stuck on the Internet. But they seemed hopeless.

(We have the same problem in the U.S., by the way.)

[fedsron2us]

18. Half of the people who turn up for the meetings of some of the extreme Marxist or Totskyist groups

in the UK are on the payroll of the police Special Branch. John le Carré mentions in several of his novels that some of the more obscure extreme left wing publications would have folded years ago if they did not get discrete financial support from the intelligence services which they are more than happy to accept. Many of these groups exist purely so that they can undermine and tarnish the traditional left.

My eyes were opened about them during a Trade Union conference in Blackpool during the 1984 miners strike at which I remember the SWP amongst others collecting money 'on behalf of miners' which they then used to fund their own party rather than to help the families of those on strike. I will never forgive them for that particular trick.

[tjwmason]

16. I used to read 'Workers' the Journal of the CPB-ML

There was an old copy left lying around in the employee lounge of my then work-place which I happened to pick up - and then subscribed for a while. It was an interesting read and surprisingly well-produced - I'd say that the strongest line in it was pro-Cuba. As I remember it was vehemently anti-E.U. and seemed to want to establish British 'independence' before building communism in Britain.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. And tonight we find Martin Durkin, ex-Revolutionary Communist Party, praising Thatcher for 90 mins

on Channel 4: http://www.cityam.com/article/margaret-thatcher-revolutionary-heroine-britain-s-working-class

The RCP split from the RCG: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Communist_Party_%28UK,_1978%29 , and started producing, in the late 80s, the Living Marxism magazine. After being sued by ITN for claiming it had faked a report of Bosnians being held in a concentration camp (the magazine seemed to think Serbia should be allowed to do what it wanted in ex-Yugoslavia, with no-one worrying if that includes ethnic cleansing or massacres), Living Marxism/LM folded, and the participants went their ways - some now forming the core of Radio 4's The Moral Maze, some running the rather libertarian Spiked website, and Martin Durkin, director of a series of anti-environmentalist Channel 4 documentaries (widely held to be a series of outrageous lies, but Channel 4 keeps inviting him back). So tonight he hails Thatcher as the true saviour of the British working classes, which he say the elitist 'toffs' (he loves the word) in parties like Labour hate.

[fedsron2us]

19. Strange how so many ex Trotskyist and Marxists wind up singing the praises of the right

in the UK and the US. Makes you wonder whose side they were on in the first place.